For one weekend each October, a town of roughly 1,100 people in Lowndes County, Mississippi, plays host to something considerably larger than itself. Caledonia Days returns for its 22nd year, and by the organizers' own reckoning it is the biggest version yet: 130 arts and crafts vendors and 26 food vendors signed up, alongside a kids area, a pet parade, a car show and a visit from the Bigfoot Monster Truck.
The festival takes over Ola J. Pickett Park, which sits in the heart of town, just northeast of Columbus. Volunteers and vendors spent the days before the gates opened setting up in the park, and the celebration got underway with an evening of live music featuring Jessica Horton and The Silver Eagle Band and Alabama Sunset. The main day runs from 8 a.m. until 5 p.m.
What the crowd sees now is a long way from where Caledonia Days began. The festival started in 2003 as a commemoration of the Town of Caledonia's centenary — a one-off birthday party for a town that had turned 100. It never really stopped. By the time the event reached its 16th year, WCBI was reporting that the festival "started as a 100th celebration of the town," and event chair Nikki Brock had a simple way of describing what it had become. "It is Caledonia's birthday party," she said. "It's our 16th annual."
That birthday-party spirit has proved durable. In its 16th year, rain could not keep the community away — hundreds turned out anyway for food, activities and live music. Ronnie Burns, a festival regular, described it to WCBI as "kinda like a big family event," adding that "all the people get to come out and see each other, have good family food, and we have a wonderful car show they do at Caledonia, and it just means a lot to everybody to have this festival."
The event has also been shaped by the people who run it. Amanda Jones took over as director from alderman Tammy McCool, who had led the festival for four years and presided over one of its most significant changes: moving the celebration from its original downtown venue to Ola J. Pickett Park. Jones was hardly a newcomer. As a young girl, she remembered helping decorate her family's downtown business and walking the parade route in the early years of the celebration. "I love Caledonia Days and I love my town," McCool told The Dispatch at the handoff, saying she had decided to step down after four years as director when she decided to run for alderman. "I can't think of anyone who I'd rather have take over. After a while, I think things like this need a new vision and Amanda is absolutely outstanding." Jones, for her part, said she could not imagine a better situation to walk into. "It's not like I came in and there were things that weren't working, that needed to be fixed," she said. "It was just walking in to a great situation and looking for ways to make it even better."
Under that new leadership the festival kept expanding. Jones added 30 vendors in her first year and enlarged the kids area, and the main stage was moved to the main ball field — a change both women believed would pull the sprawling event together. The growth has continued since. The town's own festival page now describes more than 200 vendors in total, with handmade goods, local artisans, a dedicated children's area, and food served by both local businesses and churches. Antique car and tractor enthusiasts get their own showcase, a 5K race draws the runners, and live music runs through the weekend. The pet parade, a fixture of the schedule, adds a touch of whimsy to the proceedings.
The food vendors are not only feeding a crowd. At the 16th festival, WCBI found that Zion Assembly Church of God had been a vendor for all 16 years, and that most of its proceeds went directly to missions. Pastor Byron Harris told the station the church had raised anywhere from $5,000 to $10,000 in a single weekend, money that went to orphanages, new churches and outreaches around the world.
Organizers have long described the festival's pull as extending beyond Caledonia's own borders, drawing increasing support from neighboring towns each year. The sentiment from the people who put it on is less about spectacle than about showing visitors what the place is. "I just think taking away, just the family memories, and you know, what we have here, and how we've grown every year to make it bigger," one organizer told WCBI ahead of this year's event. "This is, I think, the biggest we've had every year, and I plan to do it again next year and keep growing our festival, so that everybody can come in and just see what our small town is all about."
There is no ticket and no gate count to worry about at Ola J. Pickett Park — the festival is a free, open community event in a public park, which is part of why it can absorb a crowd that would strain a town Caledonia's size. Where else, after all, does the same Saturday schedule hold a pet parade and a monster truck?