Published: October 05, 2007 11:26 pm         

Bridges remain focus of annual festival

Parke County officials ready to welcome tourists

ROCKVILLE, Ind. — Even though it may not seem like fall, the second Friday of October always brings the Parke County Covered Bridge Festival.

This year’s 51st annual festival opens next Friday and runs through Oct. 21. About 2 million visitors are expected during the 10-day festival in the rural western Indiana county.

The festival features the county’s 31 covered bridges, while the towns and countryside showcase crafts, antiques and fall foliage.

“We are busy,” said Cathy Harkrider, executive secretary of Parke County Inc., the organization that puts on the festival each year. “We are getting a lot of requests for maps and brochures. We have been mailing out 2,000 requests every couple days.”

The courthouse square in Rockville is the central headquarters for the festival with 150 vendors underneath tents on three sides of the courthouse lawn and on Jefferson and Market streets. Twenty-two food shacks will be on the lawn offering various items ranging from beans simmered over an open fire and hot biscuits and gravy to homemade persimmon ice cream.

The booths will be open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. EDT daily. Free entertainment will be on the south side of the square.

The Mill Creek Covered Bridge near Tangier is marking its 100th anniversary this year, and a ceremony featuring cake will be at 2 p.m. Oct. 13 at the bridge.

“We will have a celebration right there at the bridge,” said Joyce Paddock, who works at the tourists information center.

Oct. 16 will be Military Honors Day with a small ceremony and guest speakers. Janet Bascardi of Clinton will have a military display.

“We want to pay a little tribute to veterans,” Harkrider said.

Agriculture Day will be Oct. 18.

“This is something new,” Harkrider said. “We will have farm equipment old and new.” A representative from the Department of Agriculture is expected.

The main attractions are the covered bridges, and five routes fan out from the courthouse square and take motorists through the bridges and into many of the smaller towns in the county, most with festival activities.

Montezuma has its pig roast and tours of the Wabash and Erie Canal. Tangier is famous for its buried beef, and apple butter making is on tap in Bloomingdale. Mecca offers a restored one-room school and Bridgeton and Mansfield feature mills and crafts and flea markets.

Local school buses will take tourists on narrated tours of three of the routes with stops along the way.

Billie Creek Village, Parke County’s recreated turn-of-the-century village, on U.S. Route 36 a mile east of Rockville offers a chance to stroll in the past with crafts and pioneer food.

“We have lots of new crafters demonstrating at Billie Creek,” Harkrider said.

Billie Creek features three covered bridges, a blacksmith, potter and many other attractions.

The Parke Players will present the melodrama, “Love Rides the Rail,” every night but Oct. 16 at the Ritz Theater. On that night, the Jackson Township Community Band will perform a concert.

Many of the tents and food shacks are already in place awaiting the influx of tourists.

“The phones have been lit up,” Paddock said. “We continue to get requests for the festival.”

IF YOU GO

To reach Parke County, go south on Indiana Route 63 off Interstate 74 to U.S. Route 36, then go west or take U.S. Route 41 south from I-74 to Parke County.

For additional information, call (765) 569-5226 or e-mail pci@ticz.com.

Most festival booths are open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. EDT daily.