History of the Blueberry Festival
2019 theme: ‘Indiana’s Largest Meet & Greet’
MARSHALL COUNTY — Oh, my gosh! — It is time to celebrate again for the largest five-day festival in Indiana. That’s great, but when did this all take place? Was it always this big? “Well No. At first it was totally local and steadily grew to what it is today. Sit down, relax and kick off your two-toned perforated shoes and rest your feet and let me tell you about its history.”
It was 53 years ago in 1966 when Indiana became 150 years old. Roger D. Branigin was governor and wanted each county in the state to celebrate this anniversary. Gov. Branigin appointed a person in each county to generate a celebration sometime during that year. Attorney George Stevens was appointed to do this task for Marshall County. Time was moving on and nothing was being done — so o o o a couple of Pilot News reporters were talking one day and noted that fact and being the ambitious reporters that they were they then talked to Eleanor Boys Blank, who was president and publisher of the Pilot Company at that time. They stated hat something should be done. Mrs. Blank agreed then met with her nephew Mike Boys, who was secretary-treasurer of The Pilot Co. and assistant publisher, to discuss the possibility of The Pilot News sponsoring this celebration. Eleanor contacted George Stevens and asked if it was OK with him if a committee was formed to begin the festivities. He welcomed this idea.
From this began a series of meetings with county civic groups, Chambers of Commerce, church groups and just plain active citizens. Because this was to be a county celebration event the steering committee consisted of one person from each township. As it was already late in the year and most of the holidays were already having events — except Labor Day.
It was decided to hold the event Sunday and Monday in Centennial Park on that weekend. There were about 20 or so food booths, a few craft booths, arts and crafts show and many had family picnics in the park. There were quite a few sporting events such as softball and baseball and fun games like beard growing contest, rolling pin throw, horse shoe pitch, ladies nail driving contest and many other fun contests.
There was a parade on Monday morning and fireworks on Monday evening to officially end summer and the celebration. Hundreds and hundreds of people came to this then two-day event and everyone had such a wonderful time that the nucleus group of organizers wanted to hold a county-wide festival every year on Labor Day weekend.
THE EARLY YEARS
A contest was held to decide what to call the festival. It was almost called the Pickle Festival as Heinz Pickle factory was a huge employer in Marshall County at the time and many farmers grew cucumbers. However there were also a lot of blueberries grown in Marshall County so it was decided by the committee that it should be called the Marshall County Blueberry Festival.
For the first several years the Blueberry Festival was held in the old portion of Centennial Park. This was before the city acquired the portion of property on the north-east side of the creek. The property was, at one time, a farm. During those early years there were only about sixty food and craft booths for people to shop — but shop they did. It was mostly local booths but a few commercial booths were there to add variety.
Early on the fireworks were held in the area where the swimming pool now stands. Festival goers sat on the bank by the old grand stand which stood on top of the hill just north of the current swimming pool and members of the Blueberry Board would “pass the bucket” to those present to help pay for the fireworks. The fireworks were held on Monday evening at the end of the Labor Day week-end. As time marched on the fireworks show was moved to Sunday to allow an additional day in case of rain which happened frequently. One addition to the fireworks show was a hot air balloon glow.
You won’t want to miss this years fantastic fireworks show — in a word: AWESOME!
BLUEBERRY FESTIVAL PARADE
The Pilot-News sponsored the Parade for many years when the Boys family owned the paper. The first few years the festival committee wanted to draw everyone to the park for a grand finale with the Blueberry Festival Parade as that was the final day of the week-end celebration. At first The PilotNews asked Chuck Etchason, who was a Jaycee, if he and the Jaycees would help coordinate, organize and provide the manpower for the parade which he/they did for many years.
During the early years the parade was held (beginning at 10 a.m.)with the starting line at Lincoln School and ending at Centennial Park. The Indiana University Calliope, which traditionally was the last entry in the parade, gave a concert at Centennial Park on Labor Day following their entry in the parade. Today it begins at Plymouth High School near Centennial Park and ends at Lincoln School.
The parade,which draws thousands, always had at least 100 entrants and the largest parade on record was the Bi-centennial year of the United States. There were almost 200 entrants of horses, floats, military units, high school and military bands, yes even a live elephant and just about anything you could think of was in the parade.
Several years later the Blueberry Stomp was organized and boasted to be the first entrant in the parade as the Stomp began a half-hour before the parade began. The Stomp has always had two major races: the 15K and the 5K. A mile fun run and a 15K Wheelchair race was added at a later date. The Stomp has always had as least 1,000 runners participating. The parade is always held on Labor Day. One interesting note about the parade — in the past 52 years it has never rained ON the parade. It has rained before and after - - but never while the parade was in progress.
THE FESTIVAL GROWS
Each year the festival has gotten larger and larger as thousands and thousands of people visit the festival during its four day run. When the new addition to the park came about there was more and more area for booths and festivities. The Marshall County Blueberry Festival is now recognized nation-wide. Today there are over 150 food booths and 400 craft booths with crafters from all over the United States. Today it is the largest four-day festival in the state of Indiana.
The carnival started with just a few kiddie rides and then a large national event show approached the festival committee and came up with a plan for a much, much larger midway featuring kiddie and adult rides.
I could go on and on about the Blueberry Festival as I had been a part of it for over 42 years. There IS definitely something for everyone at the MARSHALL COUNTY BLUEBERRY FESTIVAL.
A BIG THANK YOU to the sponsors, the 15 members of the board of directors and the hundreds of volunteers who make this festival run smoothly. 53 YEARS STRONG and COUNTING.
HAVE A GREAT FESTIVAL WEEKEND and MAY GOD BLESS