2024 HOMESTEADS
APPLE FESTIVAL
SEPTEMBER 28 & 29, 2024
Apple Festival Contact Numbers:
Volunteers = Mary DeRossett – 931-335-8419
Apple Festival Sponsor = Contact Tower Muesum 931-456-9663
Vendors = Shelia Long – 931-210-8210 – email
Follow the latest Apple Festival News on our Facebook page = @CumberlandHomesteads
Looking for a Volunteer opportunity? Well, we have a place for you!! We are planning for our 20th Annual Apple Festival and we are looking for volunteers to help make this the biggest, and best Apple Festival ever.
Since then the festival has grown in size and attendance each year. New ideas are presented each year and the C.H.T.A. Board of Directors decide on which ideas will be adopted to enhance the festival. Great emphasis is placed on keeping the festival family-oriented, affordable for families and educational about our unique history. The Tower Museum is alway open during the festival and visitors can enjoy the historic exhibits on display and climb the 97 steps to the top of the Tower.
The festival also focuses on presenting quality music and crafts. Our entertainment has been one of the highlights of the festival from the very beginning. Many local talents have graced the Apple Festival stage for great, continuous music all day. But the stage has also seen some out-of-town guest performers that helped us bring in larger attendance and larger recognition as a premier event. On the stage of the 2nd Apple Festival, Grammy-winner, Amy Grant gave a concert that will always be remembered and appreciated. It was with her generous support of C.H.T.A. efforts that many doors began to open for the Homesteads Apple Festival. One of those doors was increased corporate sponsorship of the event. Our sponsor list continues to grow each year and their support has made it possible to continue adding new features to the event.
The Apple Festival Craft Show is also a reflection of the high skills of our regional artists and craftsmen. Each year the number of booths increase, but unlike so many festival craft shows, the quality of craftsmanship does not suffer with the growth of the show. While the show is not a juried show, it is well-managed with strict rules on what crafts are acceptable. This attention to the quality of crafts allowed is appreciated by the public and the craftsmen alike.
And then there’s the food! Lots of fine folks pitch in to bake homemade goodies for our huge bake sale every year. Our fresh Fried Apple Pies are the festival’s favorite food item. The high demand for fried pies keeps a host of volunteers busy all day hand-carrying the pies to our Apple Pie and Apple Cider booths as the pies arrive to the festival.
Keeping all the food booths going is a lot of hard work for our volunteers, but they faithfully come back year after year to help us sell more burgers, beans & cornbread, hot dogs and bar-b-que. The food and drink booths bring in the majority of the funds we raise during the festival.
Lastly, there is an extra day of Apple Festival that the public is largely unaware of: the day before the festival is set aside just for the students of Homesteads Elementary School. The students get to meet our craftsmen who are demonstrating appalchian heritage crafts and tour the Tower Museum for free. Before they have to go back to class they each get an apple and a glass of cold apple cider. This special day for the students has become one of the favorite days for our craftsmen who volunteer to come demonstrate their skills just for the children.
History of Apples on the Homesteads
Apples were an important food staple for the 252 families chosen to become Cumberland Homesteaders back in the 1930’s. If you drive through the historic district today, you will see that many of the farms still have old apple trees and orchards.
Many Homesteaders brought apple tree saplings from their former home-places to plant on their new farms. These heirloom varieties were usually prized for unique characteristics. Store-bought varieties were ordered from catalogs and added to the well-planned orchards. The goal was to have apples maturing, depending upon variety, from early June until the first frost.
The “June Apples” were a favorite for frying, sliced with the peelings on, in an iron skillet. A spoonful topped with fresh butter on a homemade biscuit will instantly make the memory of the past winter melt away!
Apple harvest was anticipated with great hope of a bountiful year. Preserving the harvest for the coming winter was a cheerful task, done in many ways; apples were peeled, sliced and dried in the sun on clean bed sheets, “sulfured”, made into applesauce, apple butter and preserves or simply kept whole in the cellar until needed. Every effort was made to utilize the entire harvest and “let none go to waste”.
Apple Festival is our tribute to the Original Homesteaders and their wisdom of preserving the bounty of the harvest.
Our Volunteers
C.H.T.A.’s Homesteads Apple Festival is truly a community-supported event with well over a hundred volunteers pitching in each year to make sure our visitors have a great time!
We believe this amazing volunteer effort is a testament of the strong sense of community that has always been a vital element of this unique historic community.
If you would like to volunteer to help with the festival or become one of our official Apple Festival Sponsors, please contact Tower Museum at 931-456-9663
