
Inside Exhibits

Main Street Parade

Festival Beauty Queens

The Pet Show
A Little History
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"Come Rain Or Shine Its Apple Festival Time!"
September 24th - 26th,
2010
Each
year in the early golden days of autumn, folks from all over gather in
Chilhowie, Virginia, to celebrate. It is Apple Festival time once again. A time
to greet old friends and meet new ones, a time for the splendor of marching
bands, beauty queens, and spicy sweet apples. It is a time to enjoy the goodness
of life and to give thanks for the bounty of our families, friends, homes,
businesses, and farms.
The seed from which the
celebration has grown was planted on a dreary, rainy night in March of 1953. A
group of young men got together and suggestion that Chilhowie stage a festival
paying tribute to the apple. At the time Chilhowie was the second largest
apple-producing center in Virginia. Thus, plans and ideas were developed for the
beginning of the Chilhowie Apple Festival. The apples may have come and gone,
but the tradition still lives on in the small town in Smyth county Virginia.
The
first Apple Festival was held on October 2 and 3, 1953 on the grounds of the old
Chilhowie High School. Crowds, far larger than anticipated, attended that year’s
events, and it was estimated that over 10,000 persons viewed the first parade.


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