Celebration of Chambersburg history will heat up on Saturday
Thousands of people are expected to take to the streets in the heart of Chambersburg on Saturday for the culmination of ChambersFest 2021.
It's a good idea to come prepared for intense heat. You'll also want to make sure you have sunscreen and an umbrella.
Temperatures will rise from the low 80s when the Old Market Day street festival opens to a high of about 97 by the afternoon. High humidity will make it feel like it is almost 10 degrees hotter -- so, over 100, according to Accuweather.
It should be pretty sunny, but Accuweather's forecast shows a chance of thunderstorms throughout the day. One or more could be severe with damaging winds and flash flooding.
A thunderstorm could threaten the light-show reenactment of the Burning of Chambersburg at dusk.
While the key ChambersFest events are outside, there will be many places to cool off in air conditioning while you're downtown on Saturday.
Now that you know about the weather forecast for this big day in Chambersburg, keep reading to find out about what all will be happening to close out the 36th annual event celebrating the town's revival after it was decimated by Confederate flames almost 157 years ago.
Old Market Day
More than 150 arts and craft vendors, food trucks and community groups will be set up around Memorial Square, North and South Main streets and Lincoln Way, between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. for Old Market Day.
Fifteen food trucks are scheduled to be at the festival, according to the event's Facebook page, so there should be something for every taste. There will be two seating areas, on Lincoln Way West and in the parking lot on North Main Street across from the new judicial center.
Visitors can even get vaccinated for COVID-19, courtesy of the two health care organizations in Franklin County. WellSpan Health will offer the Pfizer vaccine, which requires two doses administered 21 days apart, to anyone age 12 and older at a walk-in clinic from 12 to 2 p.m. at YP Jewelers, 133 S. Main St. Keystone Health's Community Outreach downtown office, 51 S. Main St., will offer the single-dose Johnson and Johnson vaccine to those 18 and older.
There will be a variety of special activities and performances around downtown. The 11/30 Visitors Center, the home of the Franklin County Visitors Bureau on the southwest corner of the square, will host a few of them, including kids' activities, a new exhibit called "Let the Journey Begin...People, Places & Possibilities," Civil War walking tours, and a presentation at 1 p.m. by "Grandma Edna" Lawrence, who tells stories from American history and her own life through quilts and pillow covers.
The Council for the Arts and The Foundry will both host exhibits. The latter will showcase "Love is Love," a community project of canvases by 50 artists, arranged like a quilt.
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Light show depicts burning, rebirth of Chambersburg
As the afternoon turns to evening, the focus in Memorial Square will shift to "1864: The Ransoming, Burning and Rebirth of Chambersburg."
A combination of lights, atmospheric effects and actors take spectators back to July 30, 1864, when Chambersburg became the only town north of the Mason-Dixon Line to be burned down by the Confederate army after the townspeople failed to produce the ransom of $100,000 in gold or $500,000 in Union currency demanded by Brigadier General John McCausland and his 2,800-strong cavalry. The flames destroyed more than 500 structures and left about 2,000 people homeless.
“Since the first 1864 event, a common question is: why celebrate a town’s burning?” Janet Pollard, executive director of Franklin County Visitors Bureau, the organization responsible for the annual event, said in a news release. "1864 celebrates the rebirth of the town and the spirit of the people, who brought Chambersburg to life.”
The show will start at 8:45, with the 11/30 Visitors Center again standing in for Franklin County's historic courthouse, whose grand columns were salvaged from the original courthouse destroyed in the burning. Traditionally the stage for the reenactment, which was first held in 2011, the Old Courthouse and the surrounding campus are part of a nearly-finished $67.8 million expansion and renovation project to enhance security and efficiency in the courts and other county offices.
(Fun fact: The cost of the Court Facility Improvement Project is more than two times the amount it took to rebuild after the Burning of Chambersburg, when accounting for inflation. It cost about $1.6 million to rebuild in 1864, which comes out to almost $27.7 million in 2021. According to the website in2013dollars.com, $1 in 1864 is equal to about $17.31 today.)
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A Cappella and Unplugged and more
After Old Market Day officially ends, there will be several festivities leading up to the start of the 1864 light show.
The big pre-show will be the finals of A Cappella and Unplugged. For weeks, local musicians have been vying for a spot in this seventh-annual contest for vocalists and acoustic musicians. Three finalists, whose performance videos received the most number of likes on the Franklin County Visitors Bureau's Facebook page this week out of a field of six semi-finalists, will perform at 7 p.m. at the 11/30 Visitors Center. The winner, who will be named at 8 p.m., will get $500 and will perform before the "1864" light show.
There will be other activities in and around the 11/30 Visitors Center before the contest finals, including glow-in-the-dark temporary tattoos, photos with the cast of the reenactment and a rock-climbing wall. Jim Rada, a Gettysburg-based author and historian, will also appear between 5:30 and 8.
For more information about Old Market Day, the "1864" light show, or other parts of ChambersFest, go to https://www.chambersburg.org/chambersfest/.
Amber South can be reached at asouth@publicopinionnews.com.