If manatees, Zora Neale Hurston and the Gasparilla can’t get you out of the house on Saturday, maybe the Annual Yesterdays Festival can.
Mike Roess Gold Head Branch State Park in Keystone Heights hosts the festival which starts off with a bang – literally.
Yep, they fire cannons.
What’s Cooking At The Yesterdays Festival?
Umm … for one thing cane syrup.
You get to learn how to cook it the old-fashioned way.
You also get to
- Be on the lookout for Moss Man
- Make moonshine
- See a half-scale model of the Confederate submarine Hunley, the world’s first successful submarine
- Learn to loom and spin weave
- Watch Native American beading
- Watch Civil War re-enactors re-enact in rustic campsites and fire more cannons
- Watch open-fire and cast-iron cooking
- Visit a Florida Cracker cow camp
- See demonstrations of numerous gas and steam engines, antique tools, tractors and cars
- Talk to WWII re-enactors
- Get turpentine from pine trees
The goodies on offer range from root beer floats and kettle corn to hamburgers, hotdogs and handmade ice cream.
Members of the Florida Public Archaeology Network teach your kids how to play historic games, and there’s blue grass and gospel music on tap, too.
Mike Roess Gold Head Branch State Park
All the fun happens at Mike Roess Gold Head Branch State Park, one of Florida’s first state parks.
The property for the park was donated by a guy named Mike Roess and developed by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), started in 1933 as part of FDR’s New Deal to find employment for young men during the Great Depression.
CCC workers helped develop the first eight state parks, of which Mike Roess is one.
The park was officially dedicated on April 15, 1939, and many of the original CCC structures – the Picnic Pavilion and Lake Johnson (1939) and the Bathhouse Terrace – are still in use.
Come on – there’s nothing like dodging a cannon ball to get the weekend off to a good start.
- Annual Yesterdays Festival
- Sat. & Sun., Jan. 28 & 29
- Admission:$5.00 per vehicle, up to eight people.
- Mike Roess Gold Head Branch State Park
- 6239 State Road 21
- Keystone Heights, Fla. 32656
- Phone: 352-473-4701.
www.floridastateparks.org/mikeroess/default.cfm
Directions: Mike Roess is located midway between Gainesville and Jacksonville, 6 miles north of Keystone Heights.
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OFFICIAL BIO: K Truitt is a second-generation, native Floridian born in Jacksonville. Truitt worked in public higher education for 25 years, most recently in Texas, is a successful grant writer, knows newspaper publishing, printing and graphic design and wants to work in the public sector. Contact: kt.4examiner@yahoo.com
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