Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

All in place for festival

Gurdon's Annual Forest Festival will be held on Saturday, October 25 this year.

Ever wondered where the famous festival originated from?

When the first centennial of Gurdon was celebrated in 1980, almost everyone in Gurdon dressed attire coincided with the outfits worn in 1880.

Indians from different tribes came to town and set up tee-pees, a few arts and crafts were set up on Main Street, a parade was held with the theme of the 1880's and several games were set up for everyone to enjoy.

In the beginning the Gurdon Chamber of Commerce was in charge of the event with Brenda Glover Arnold was the director.

After the first year's success of the festival the Chamber decided to make it an annual event. Arnold's grandmother, Ms. Willingham, was responsible for naming the event as "The Gurdon Forest Festival." Willingham was given a plaque for her contribution.

In 1982 the Chamber decided to turn the festival over to the Community Development & Entertainment Club.

The CD&E Club had been holding a Halloween Carnival on the last Saturday in October ever since the 60's. The carnival was held in the parking lot of Austin's Department Store. Parents could bring their children for some witches stew, music, dancing, palm reading and candy.

The club decided it would be easy to use all of their manpower to put on the Forest Festival as it had the Halloween carnival.

Freddie Horne and Billy Wells both decided to take on the job as directors of the festival.

Good entertainment always draws a crowd to the festival, and over the years some local "celebrities" such as, Ned Perme and Chuck Dovish, both news correspondents, have spoken at the festival. Several politicians have spoken at the festival along with local talent bringing in a large crowd.

In the 90's an antique car show was added to the festival agenda. Freddie Horne and Terry Norris were in charge of the show, which grew more each year they ran it. Both Horne and Norris have moved out of town, but still take time to get the car show together each year.

Several logging games have been added to the festival over the years. There has been the guessing the weight of the load of logs, the chainsaw competition and the log loading competition.

Though one of the festivals originators has since moved on to "bigger and better" things, Freddie Horne, the festival is still growing and is always looked forward to.

Many different events have entertained festival goers over the years, such as, a turkey shoot, a softball tournament, horseshoe pitching tournament, pole climbing, air shows and many different other competitions.

Vendors from as far away as California have come to the festival to sale their wares. When the festival first began there were only 18-20 vendors. To date the largest amount of vendors is 180.

It is still uncertain as to how many vendors will be present for this year's festival, but according Wells it is guaranteed to be a good one whether it is rain or shine.