It’s Fair & Festival season in Northern Virginia as we now officially enter the Fall. Each and every weekend through Thanksgiving offers multiple events across the region sponsored by towns, organizations, or businesses such as the many wineries dotting the countryside.
The little town of Hillsboro, however, may just take the prize for this year’s most unique event!
Located on Highway 9 in western Loudoun County with a population of less than 100 people, Hillsboro’s Heritage Days will turn back the clock 100 years to 1916 and showcase life in the region as it was exactly one century ago with the use of historical reenactments, music, speeches, decorations and signs, and living history events.
In the autumn of 1916, Americans were still debating whether to enter World War I, which was already raging in Europe. President Woodrow Wilson (a Virginian) was running for re-election with the primary issue of his campaign being to stay out of the war. His opponent, Charles Evans Hughes, was prepared to have the US join the fight. At the same time, Virginians had mixed reactions to the state’s new prohibition law and there was a major political movement underway to grant women the right to vote.
2016’s 100-year throw-back event will be held Sept. 29-Oct. 1 on the grounds of the Old Stone School, built in 1874. Proceeds from the ticketed portions of the three-day fest will go towards the historic schoolhouse’s preservation.
The time travel begins on Thursday, Sept. 29 with an “Eat, Drink & Be Literary” event where a “noted war correspondent” of 1916 will tell the people of Hillsboro about the horrors he has witnessed on the battlefields of Europe at The Somme and Verdun.
Friday night, Sept. 30, pays tribute to those opposed to Virginia’s prohibition laws of the time period by hosting a Speakeasy Party, complete with a secret password required to get in!
“In spite of Virginia’s new prohibition law, drinking and carousing is reportedly occurring at a hidden location in the Hillsboro area.”
Finally, on Saturday, Oct. 1 from 3pm until 9pm at the Old Stone School, the annual “Gaptoberfest” event will feature standard “fair fare” – food, music, wine and beer tastings, local artisans, kids’ games – but will be given a 1916 twist with a presidential debate between Wilson and Hughes, a suffragist rally, and demonstrations by both pro and anti-prohibition protesters.
For more information and to purchase tickets to the Thursday and Friday night events, visit www.oldstoneschool.org
