I’ve mentioned visiting local history museums as a way of learning more about a place, but I recently had the pleasure of exploring another method of discovery: a history festival. Near Greenview, Illinois, a town not far from Springfield, I had the very great pleasure of attending the Marbold Heritage Festival. In this case, I had learned about the festival because they wanted to have a speaker, and they invited me to give two presentations over the two days of the festival. While it’s always fun to share with an appreciative audience, I was also delighted to both learn more about the purpose of the event and enjoy the community gathered to support that purpose.
The Historic Marbold Farmstead was built in 1850 by German immigrant John Marbold, who was a successful local businessman and farmer. The house had fallen into disrepair, and the festival was part of the ongoing effort to raise funds to fully restore it. There is still a fair bit of work to be done inside, but the house is beautiful and definitely taking shape.
The festival involved tours of the house, but also featured amazingly talented local artisans (beautiful carved wood, woven wheat, hand-made jewelry, rugs), purveyors (local honey, pies, BBQ), plus wonderful musicians, a Civil War reenactment group, and antique tractors from local collectors. One individual had an impressive collection of corn-related items, and since I was there to talk about the history of corn, I of course had to visit his display. Most of what he had was familiar, from years of research—devices for shelling corn, gloves and hooks for protecting hands while shucking corn, and more. But proving my contention that there is almost always something new, I found that he had a device I’d never seen before. I’d seen large-scale systems for bagging corn, from the days when all grain was shipped in two-bushel bags. But here was a small-scale device for a lone farmer bagging his own crop. I’d never seen it before.
So next time you see a promotion for a heritage festival, consider going. You never know what you might learn.
Midwest Maize 