October 4, 2023
Pumpkintown, SC – What better way to kick off fall than with the Pumpkintown Fire Department Fall Festival on October 7 that helps the Pumpkintown Fire Department raise funds for their Firefighter Fund.
Fire Chief Lee McJunkin said this is the second annual Pumpkintown Fire Department Fall Festival. He said it is modeled after the former Pumpkintown Festival that was a staple in the area for 40 years. That longtime festival disbursed around 2020 when COVID hit.
This Fall Festival raises money for the fire department through the vendors. The vendors pay a fee to be at the festival and it allows the fire department to raise the funds for their 40 volunteer firefighters.
According to McJunkin this helps their Firefighter Fund that the volunteers can utilize when there is a death in the family and they give out flowers to the bereaved, it pays for the meals when they have training sessions and more.
Last year, they had about 4,000 people in attendance.
Their will be craft vendors for home décor, food, dog treats, body scrubs and the list goes on. He said their will be food to purchase, fire safety resources, people can take pictures with the fire truck, pumpkins for sale and live music.
The event is at 119 Bethany Cove Drive, Pickens, SC from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Minor Pumpkintown History
For those wondering where in South Carolina this Pumpkintown is located, it is in Pickens County. The location is not an actual town since it was never incorporated.
Dennis Chastain, local historian and former firefighter, provided more details on Pumpkintown and their former festival.
Chastain said the Ooloney River near Pumpkintown was named after the Cherokee chief who lived in Pumpkintown, Woolenoy in the mid-1700s. At the time Pumpkintown was prominent for transporting goods because it was built around a four-way intersection with two drovers roads.
This intersection was ancient Indian footpaths that were widened for wagon standards.
Drovers were the people who handled drives of cattle, turkey, hogs or produce like apples, cabbage or sweet potatoes from different areas. According to Chastain, The two drover roads in Pumpkintown led drovers from Knoxville, Tennessee to Asheville, NC to Pumpkintown and even down to Charleston, South Carolina.
According to information from Pickens County Museum Director, Tabitha Johnson, folklore says an anonymous traveler gave it the name Pumpkin Town after seeing the plethora of large pumpkins along the Oolenoy Valley.
Liberia, South Carolina: An African American Appalachian Community by John M. Coggeshall cites the following story of the location’s name:
“‘A later local historian…credited an inebriated Scots-Irish local resident (unnamed) who, growing tired of a debate for the community’s name, waved his arm toward the “great fields of corn and immense pumpkins,” swore and exclaimed, “’Jest call ‘er Punkin Town!’”’
Minor Pumpkintown Festival History
McJunkin said the Fall Festival is modeled after the Pumpkintown Festival. According to book “Echoes – Oolenoy — Pumpkintown,” by Alma Lynch and Elizabeth Ellison, the first Pumpkintown Festival was October 13, 1979. There were around 7,000 attendees with attendees from Washington, D.C., Virginia, Georgia, Oregon, Texas, the Carolinas, Missouri, Florida, Maryland and New York.
Activities at the event were a parade from Pumpkintown General Store to the Oolenoy Community Building, a pumpkin carving contest, a barbecue dinner for the fire department, an auction to raise funds for the fire department, a pumpkin eating contest and then some.
