ROTARY CHICKEN BARBECUE AND FALL FESTIVAL 2011
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itors amidst tantalizing aromas of spe-
cialty foods.
Hudson, a Plymouth historian,
chronicled the beginning of the Fall
Festival with the barbecue thought up
by Lightfoot when about 500 people
attended.
It was successful enough to return
the following year and the year after as
a community barbecue and, after a
one-year hiatus, the event returned as
the first PlymouthFall Festival in 1960.
It had beenmoved from the original
June date to the fall by that time, and
the original organizers of the event
wanted to put on more than just a bar-
becue.
They traveled to Manchester, where
volunteers had organized a successful
barbecue for several years, according
to Hudson. They came away with new
ideas to improve the event, everything
from a better, more efficient way to
cook the chicken to ways to approach
other community groups to get them
involved.
The event was moved from the orig-
inal park site in 1957 to the Hamilton
Street playground. That year, the
Rotary members prepared and served
500 chickens. The barbecued chicken,
corn-on-the-cob, potato chips and cof-
fee were $2 for adults and $1.25 for
children. The club shows a $505 profit,
according to their old records.
The third event took place at
Plymouth High School, now Central
Middle School, on the athletic field.
This year, the price for the dinner was
reduced to $1.50 for adults and $1 for
children.
In 1959, the club skipped the event,
but in 1960, the event was named the
Fall Festival and moved to Kellogg
Park, which has been the hub of the
event and the site of the chicken barbe-
cue ever since. Some of the same
blocks used to build the pits all those
years ago are still in service.
Before long, the Three Cities Art
Club had signed up to display paint-
ings and other sources of art; the
Plymouth Theater Guild presented a
one-act play and The Plymouth
Historical Society displayed artifacts
and photographs depicting the history
of the town beneath parachute silk
tents to protect the precious docu-
See
History,
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