Mountainer Folk Festival scheduled

Traditions, which have existed for many decades in the Upper Cumberland Mountain region, will be expertly demonstrated and performed when Fall Creek Falls State Park and the Friends of Fall Creek Falls present the Mountaineer Folk Festival Sept. 6, 7 and 8 on the Village Green area. This is the festival’s 24th year.

Handmade crafts will be for sale and music will be performed on the Wood Stage and the Amphitheater during the festival hours Friday, 7 to 10 p.m.; Saturday, 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.; and Sunday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. The event will be officially opened with a cannon firing followed by a jam session and square dance with music by Blue Creek Ramblers and Marion County Bluegrass.

Featured pioneer skill demonstrations include a working mule team on sorghum mill, molasses making, apple butter and cracklings, sheep shearing, weaving, sheep herding with a dog, quilting, blacksmithing and horse shoeing, knife making, chair making, coal mining, hewing out cross ties and riving out shingles.

There will be wagons rides offered and a Civil War encampment for observing. Country cooking, old time fiddling and banjo playing, ballads and storytelling, more bluegrass music and a variety of exhibits round out the jam-packed schedule.

Suggested donations are $2 a day per person or $3 for entire weekend.