Fort Payne Boom Days Heritage Festival by John Dersham

One thing for sure, there is always plenty to do in DeKalb County. If you don’t think so or don’t try to follow just take a look at our Calendar of Events listed on our DeKalb Tourism website at www.DiscoverLookoutMountain.com. The first thing you will think when you see our list of events is you had no idea there would be so many offerings all year long. Our focus here is the ninth annual Fort Payne Boom Days Heritage Festival. This event emanates out of the rich cultural history of Fort Payne. In 1889, wealthy New Englanders mostly from Boston came to Fort Payne to establish an Iron and Coal industry. In doing so they brought their culture to us…an Opera House, large Victorian homes, a much better than average railroad station, a fantastic hotel and many beautiful downtown buildings. Many Boom Days era buildings still exist today. Boom day’s festival takes place in the historic area of downtown Fort Payne. It incorporates the 1889 Iron and Coal block, the city park which was the former front yard for the DeKalb Hotel which burned in 1918. The railroad station, the Alabama walking park and Rotary Amphitheater are all included, including several blocks of downtown from 1^st to 5^th streets. Boom Days which has events beginning on Sunday, September 14^th with the Joe Underwood Gospel singing at the Ft. Payne City Hall Auditorium at 3 P.M. and terminating on Saturday the 20^th with a full day of more than 30 music acts on six stages. On Thursday, September 18^th the highly successful movie Muscle Shoals will be featured in the DeKalb Theater at 7 P.M. with a meet and greet with legendary Shoals artists Jimmy Johnson and David Hood. New features this year include Katie Sunshine a Hula Hoop dancer extraordinaire, Dean’s High Flying Disc Dogs and Matt Mullins from Duncan Yo-yo will demonstrate and teach you how to REALLY use your Yo-yo. In addition, you will see top notch artisans from oil painting to wood carving, pottery and glass, and the list goes on. There will be lots of food and beverages including a beer garden and wine tasting at Hunt Hall. There is a classic car show, kid’s inflatables and much, much more. This festival has so many things going on you need to stay the whole day because the entertainment and venues are changing all day long. The event concludes Saturday night with legendary Wet Willie performing at the DeKalb Theater at 8 P.M.

Last year Boom Days Heritage Festival won two major awards. These awards are hard to get. There are more than 300 festivals competing just in North Alabama each year and thousands in the southeast region. Southeast Tourism Society who covers the 12 state southeast honored Boom Days with the fall event of the year and Alabama Mountain Lakes Tourism Association (northern 16 counties in AL) honored Boom Days with the Festival or Event of the year award. The criteria include quality and diversity of the agenda, it must be unique and it must support the integrity of the community.

You will not want to miss Boom Days Heritage Festival 2014 on Saturday, September 20^th starting at 8 A.M. and running all day on into the evening. For all the details about the event and the schedule of events and musical artists visit www.Boomdays.org