Galesburg Heritage Days Living History Festival is recognized as one of the Midwest's largest living history festivals. This year, from August 19 to 21, share in the excitement at Lake Storey Park, Galesburg, Illinois, with over 700 fellow re-enactors.
Galesburg Heritage Days is an educational-oriented organization that teaches history by hosting an annual living history festival with two encampments within walking distance of each other. There is a pre-1840 colonial/frontier rendezvous and a fully fielded civil war camp. More than 400+ school kids visit on Friday to learn long-ago skills, such as basket weaving, candle-making, flint & steel fire-starting, blacksmithing, spinning, etc. There are 30 stations for them to visit.
Weekend activities on Saturday and Sunday include horse and wagon rides, Faire Wynd's Circus, period music by Brigand's Folie and Ha'Penny, $1 candle dipping at Pineapples, pre-1840's fashion show, period trade goods (30+ traders), period demonstrations, pie & cake auction, quilt drawing, special appearances by Benjamin Franklin and Abe Lincoln, church services, kid's games, candy cannon, three food kitchens, two major battle re-enactments, performances by Lewis & Clark Fife and Drum Corps from St. Charles, Missouri, The Windy City Wizard, camp dance, night firing of cannons, and much more.
There are no entrance fees or parking charges for this event. Galesburg’s beautiful Lake Storey Park site offers 411 acres of rolling woodland and prairie, and a 130 acre lake.
For more information on Galesburg visit www.visitgalesburg.com/
For more information about top events in Illinois take a look at the Top Events USA selection of the annual main festivals and events in Illinois.