by ThirdAveHooligan
Anyone up for a quick history lesson?
Love it or hate it, one of Phoenixville’s longest-running traditions begins next week: the Dogwood Festival. Some may think it’s a cheesy carnival with creepy carnies and food containing enough trans fats to kill an elephant, others can’t get enough of how the smell of funnel cakes makes your mouth water and the nausea caused by one too many rides on the Tilt-a-Whirl. Regardless of how you view the festival, there’s actually a lot of history behind it, and if you like to know interesting tidbits about our town the way I do, then hopefully I’ve piqued your interest enough to keep reading.
I guess the most important thing to mention is that the Dogwood Festival is an annual event organized by the Phoenixville Jaycees, a community group comprised of men and women between the ages of 18 and 40 that was established in 1952. The festival itself is synched with the blooming of the dogwood tree, one of the first in our area to flower (which it does with beautiful white or pink flowers) and started to celebrate the crowning of the Dogwood Queen.
The crowning of the Dogwood Queen began in the mid-1940s and the queen, usually a junior in high school, obtained her crown by selling war bonds. The first Dogwood Pageant was held because there was no longer a need to sell war bonds. The first pageant and festival was a one-day event held in 1952, and each year the queen would plant a dogwood tree in Reeves Park. Unfortunately, not too many survived over the years, but there are still some left in the park to admire.
Since 1952, the festival has gone from one, to three, to seven days (it was extended to seven about 10 years ago) and has been capped off by the Dogwood Parade, which, like the crowing of the queen, was intended to salute the Armed Services. In fact, the parade often falls on Armed Services Day, which this year is May 16…Armed Services Day.
