So much to see: Covered Bridge Festival off to a booming start

Oct. 15—With 31 covered bridges scattered throughout Parke County in locations as disparate as Turkey Run State Park and Little Raccoon Creek, it's the ideal location for a covered bridge festival.

Since its inception in 1957, the Parke County Covered Bridge Festival has become Indiana's largest festival, luring about 2 million people a year.

In Bridgeton, a massive opening-day crowd filled the streets, picnic tables and vendors' booths on Friday.

Vendors were so ubiquitous throughout Bridgeton that a sign announcing "more vendors" must have set a new record for redundancy.

Sasquatch metal cutouts and helicopter and biplane sculptures were on sale, as were Halloween decorations and vintage gas pumps. One tent offered, per its sign, "Damn Fine Stuff." People were carting out their purchases in wagons.

Among the food vendors, traditional fair fare like corn dogs and kettle corn were readily available, but so was more exotic cuisine like bacon jam and hot pumpkin chili.

Both helicopter and horse-and-buggy rides were on offer.

Inside the Bridgeton Mill, the Midwest's oldest continually operating mill — it has churned out its product since 1823 — Mike Roe, the mill's 14th owner in its history, told one patron he's contemplating the day he'll have to purchase a new millstone as he prepared a batch of cornmeal.

"In 87 years from now, I got to start shopping for a new stone," he said. "They wear out. This stone is a special stone, it's called a French Burr because it came from France, the best guess being in the 1840s. It's fresh-water quartz, which means it's harder than glass."

Roe continued, "They have an estimated life of 300 years, so this one's not out of warranty yet. In 87 years, I'll have to start shopping for a new one."

Glen and Cathy Eads from Greencastle were handling a more immediate investment — George pushed a cart carrying a tree sculpture. Asked what inspired the purchase, he simply pointed to his wife.

"It'll sit on my porch all year long," said Cathy, adding that they were more interested in the vendors than the food.

Misty Soler of Indianapolis shared that enthusiasm for possessions over comestibles.

"You don't want to take anything away from the food, but we just had the Indiana State Fair a couple of months ago, so I've had plenty of elephant ears."

Soler had already bought clothes, toys, candy and rugs. She used to be a faithful attendee, but hadn't been to the festival in five or six years.

"There's a little bit of nostalgia attached to it for me, because my grandmother always brought me," she said. "I think about the things grandma and I would look for when we shopped. That's part of it for me, personally."

When she arrived that morning, Soler said, "There weren't that many people here, so we thought we'd picked the perfect day, and now it's hard to get through [the crowds]. It's a madhouse."

Ashley Davis of Memphis in Southern Indiana was enjoying her first festival, though she has relatives who lived in the area who are frequent attendees.

"I love it so far — there's so much to see," she said alongside her daughters Charlie, 6, and Frankie, 4, in a line so her niece could treat herself to a wine slushee.

"The food is the main attraction. I'm afraid I'm gonna get full on something and then not be able to eat the next thing that comes along. I'm getting pretty hungry just talking about it."

Jessie Smith could commiserate with Davis' desire to wait for the perfect edible.

"I had a little buyer's remorse after seeing other people's food," said the Indianapolis resident who took a day off from her job with the Hoosier Lottery to attend the event with friends. "I bit early and got some chicken and noodles, and then I saw everything else — a walleye sandwich, a bread bowl with soup in it — I'm a little sad about everything else."

Inside Bridgeton's covered bridge, Clayton Peters of Crawfordsville played his violin for passersby.

"I've tried other places, but this is the perfect place for me," he said as a youngster dropped a dollar bill into his violin case.

"Look around — look at these fall colors, look at these happy, smiling, unmasked faces. It's a beautiful place to play — a terrible arsonist burned it down [in 2005] and they rebuilt it [in 2006] because it's just so fantastic."

In the Bridgeton Craft Barn, Leo Otto and his wife Gloria peddled Select Trax highway-and-bridge toys, Transformers, remote-controlled unicorns, rubber band shooting guns, and cars capable of performing all manner of stunts. They've been bringing their Pennsylvania-based Gigi Enterprises to the festival for more than a decade.

"We love being here — that's one of the reasons we keep coming back," Leo said. "The people are very nice here. We go all over the country, to different areas with all sorts of different people. We just love it here."

Business, he reported, is "very good. We're not complaining at all. Last year was an exceptional year — it's difficult to compare yourself to an exceptional year. But so far, we're very happy with what we're doing so far."

Otto continued, "What we were able to do is have everything we have here still go at last year's prices. Yeah, there's 10% inflation, just not on our prices. We shaved a little bit here and there."

Natalie Sirois was with a cadre of compadres from Indianapolis who were all dressed as witches, a Covered Bridge Festival tradition they began 12 years ago.

"Our mother used to come with us every year; she came with us last year and she passed away this year," Sirois said of her mother Jean Doty. "We have always worn hats — we come here just for that."

Standing just outside the covered bridge, she said, "We placed a rock [here last year] with four crazy witches drawn upon it and so we were looking for it." Alas, they were not able to locate what apparently became someone else's keepsake.

Sirois and her friends are frequently stopped by other guests commenting on their outfits.

"They don't necessarily want to take our photo, but they stop us and say, 'We love your hats!'" she said. "Mother would be thrilled."

The Covered Bridge Festival continues through Oct. 23.

David Kronke can be reached at 812-231-4232 or at david.kronke@tribstar.com.