To help celebrate the state’s bicentennial, the Clarke County Museum will host a bigger Pioneer Day with longer hours. The 18th annual event will be Saturday, Oct. 28, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the museum in Grove Hill. The free living history event features costumed re-enactors demonstrating early life in southwest Alabama. The Willie Overton Memorial Tractor & Engine show will be another featured event.
More than 25 demonstrations representing different times in history are scheduled simultaneously throughout the day including cane syrup making, blacksmithing and forging, dugout canoe making, candle making, straw brooms, flint knapping, basket weaving, butter churning, wool spinning, tomahawk throwing, knife making, cracklings, basketmaking, rope making, homemade bows and arrows, turpentining and many more.
Visitors are encouraged to bring their Native American artifacts to be identified by archaeologists from the University of West Alabama. An old-fashioned circuit riding preacher like the ones who traveled this area when it was called the Mississippi Territory will give rousing sermons.
Another new portrayal this year will be that of Albert Koch, the German-born “scientist” who discovered the Zeuglodon bones in Clarke County in the mid-1800s. The re-enactor portraying Koch will bring a collection of the whale’s fossils from the Black Belt Museum in Livingston.
Always a hit, Blue Heron will display his Creek hunting camp.
Re-enactors will set up an 1860s chuck wagon camp and demonstrate Dutch oven cooking, including chicken and dumplings and turnip soup. Homemade Brunswick stew, and pies and other homemade baked goods will be available. The grist mill will run throughout the day and cornmeal will be for sale. Winky Hicks will provide live music throughout the day.
There will be lots of old-timey games, a barnyard petting zoo for children and train rides.
A new exhibit celebrating the bicentennial of World War I in Clarke County will be open.
Anyone wishing to enter an antique tractor, car, truck or hit or miss engine in the show should arrive at 8.
All events will take place on the grounds of the Clarke County Museum at the intersection of Cobb and Jackson Streets in Grove Hill. Admission is free.
For more information, contact the museum office at 251-275-8684, visit their website at www.clarkemuseum.com, or find them on Facebook as Clarke County Historical Museum.