Heritage Festival offers look back at folkways

The 11th Annual Siloam Springs Heritage Festival will be on Saturday, June 25. Sponsored by the Siloam Springs Museum, the celebration of history, community, traditional ways of life and culture will run from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. in Siloam Springs City Park and the Community Building in the heart of the Siloam Springs historic downtown.

The festival will have musical performances, living history presentations, traditional craft demonstrations, exhibits of artifacts and memorabilia and craft and food vendors. It is family friendly and free to the public.

"I am so pleased that some of our old favorites are returning to perform or demonstrate at the festival, such as the Ozark Highlanders Pipe Band and the Arkansas Lead Slingers," said Siloam Springs Museum Public Programs Manager Karin Woodruff in a press release. "The Arkansas Lead Slingers like to stage a lively 'shoot out' at high noon on University Street, which always draws a crowd."

Woodruff is also introducing several new groups to the festival this year, including a barbershop chorus from the Greater Ozarks Chapter of the Barbershop Harmony Society, a Native American flute player, and educators from the Cherokee Heritage Center.

"One way we wanted to expand this year was to create more awareness and appreciation of Native American history at the Heritage Festival," Woodruff said. "The educators, Gina Burnett and Robert Lewis, from the Cherokee Heritage Center will do just that."

In addition to witnessing story telling and historic presentations, those in attendance will get the opportunity to try out Cherokee blowguns, a release states.

Guests will also have the opportunity to converse with mountainman re-enactors and view blacksmithing, woodcarving, bow making, quilting and flint-knapping demonstrations throughout the day. Vendors of traditional and handmade items will be selling their wares. Siloam Springs Farmers Market will be present in City Park during the event.

In addition to the demonstrations, music, crafts and food, visitors can participate in a walking tour of the Historic Downtown with Siloam Springs Museum director Don Warden.