Washington Street Festival celebrates historical homes

The East Central Neighborhood Association hosted Muncie’s 37th Annual Old Washington Street Festival and Historic Homes Tour this weekend.

This year, the festival welcomed more vendors than ever before, selling everything from necklaces to homemade soap to antique suitcases. Many vendors come every year, and some were new to this particular festival.

Susan Poole has been selling her handmade jewelry for 25 years, and she has participated in the Old Washington Street Festival for 11 years.

“The festival draws people to Muncie to enjoy arts, architecture and floral arrangements,” Poole said.

She plans on coming back next year and so on, as long as the profits stay consistent.

People came out from neighboring towns such as Yorktown and Daleville to enjoy the festivities on Washington Street.

Flowers are a prominent part of the festival with mums and other fresh flowers for sale. The Muncie Civic Theatre sold a few racks of used costumes from past productions. Face painting was available for children.

The festival had a wide variety of food and drink available, including brats, hot dogs, ham, beans and fall-themed apple cider slushes.

There were three stages with a few different performances on each. Cook and Belle, with Seth Cook, rocked the stage Sunday afternoon.

America’s Hometown Band, the Cornfield Cloggers and other groups also performed. The Cloggers performed the “Gangnam Style” dance, popularized by South Korean pop artist, Psy.

Victoria Schofield, a Ball State alumna, said it was a “pretty good turnout this year.” She has been coming to the festival for 13 years. Schofield said the festival is expanding with its vendors.

There were a few areas set up where the crowd could examine photographs and articles from old-time Muncie. This gallery included a focus on Emily Kimbrough. The Emily Kimbrough Historic District in Muncie was named after the Muncie author and journalist.

For a fee, Muncie inhabitants were welcome to explore roughly 14 blocks of homes that capture the history of the city.

“I hope it will encourage them to clean up the neighborhood,” said Karen Good, chair of the Genealogy department of the Delaware County Historical Society. She has volunteered with the festival for three years.

Many of the houses date back to the turn of the 20th century. Many of the houses in the Emily Kimbrough Historic District have been included on the National Register of Historic Places.

While some are not in perfect condition, the festival showed off the historical homes that have been kept up and preserved.

See a photo gallery of the event.