Living History Festival in Athens
 

It was a day just like yesterday, well, maybe a hundred and fifty years of yesterdays! As the Athens-Limestone County Tourism Council offered a free Living History Festival on Saturday July 23rd in Big Spring Memorial Park.

The experience included a Civil War encampment of how the soldiers lived 150 years ago. The encampment included Officers, Sergeants, and Enlisted men's tents, Surgeon's tent, long rifle demonstrations, drum demonstrations and a cannon being shot! Also the life experience on the home front with demonstrations with blacksmithing and homemade Ice cream available.

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There was help for people interested in starting their genealogy search for Civil War ancestors and information about the battles of Athens.  Jim Patteson showed children how homemade toys looked and worked without batteries or without being bought at a store. The kids were actually fascinated by the technology (or lack of) and mesmerized at how the toys would move and how they could be entertaining with something that didn’t have instructions or commercial to coheres you to try it.  

Barren River Trio performed a free concert at 2pm beside the Athens Visitors Center to round out the day.  These three young men are from Bowling Green, KY.

It was warm but it was a great day of learning about our past while enjoying a day with your family!

For more information contact the Athens Visitors Center at 256-232-5411 or 256-867-1438 or visit our website www.visitathensal.com.

Teresa Todd
AthensPlus.com
July 23rd, 2011