Date Set For Founders Day Festival

It's hard to figure out what to get someone when they turn 274 but you can throw them one heck of a party.

The Pickens Revitalization Association and others plan to do just that for General Andrew Pickens, the county's namesake.

Last year, a new music festival was begun in Pickens and named in honor of Gen. Pickens.

The first Founders Day festival was held on Main Street in Pickens last year.

The festival featured Old time, country, bluegrass and folk music. Bands with local ties played on the stages and impromptu jam sessions started up and down Main Street.

A huge jam session and contra dance closed out the festival.

The Second Annual Founders Day Festival is slated for September 14, according to Wayne Kelley, Vice-President of the Pickens County Historical Society.

“Founders Day will be bigger than ever,” he said.

The PCHS will provide the cake for the general's birthday, Kelley said.

“The Historical Society will celebrate the 274th birthday of General Andrew Pickens,” he said. “His birthday falls the day before the Founders Day festival. We think what we want to do is make a huge birthday cake. Our table will be dead center in the west end of Pickens, at the new amphitheater, which will be open for this event for the first time.

“So we'll be right in the middle,” Kelley continued. “We want our table to be mostly consumed with a gigantic birthday cake for Gen. Andrew Pickens, a one-layer sheet cake with his portrait on it. We'll cut that thing up into little cubes and give it away to all of our visitors.”

The society will enlist Picken County Career & Technology Center students to make the cake, Kelley said.

Efforts are ongoing to create a monument to Gen. Pickens in Pickens, Kelley said. A statue of the general exists behind the Pickens County Courthouse, but there is no monument to the general.

“We do not in Pickens County have an appropriate monument to him,” he said. “We should – we will. And it needs to be big. It needs to be a monument.”

Kelley is working with several potential designs for the monument and the society will be meeting with city officials about a site for the monument.

The Department of Transportation rejected one potential site for the monument, citing concerns about blocking traffic.

“We can overcome that,” Kelley said. “The monument must rise and we can actually do it quite economically. We have very talented people that can help us get this thing done. It will be yet another wonderful historic photo opp in Pickens County.”

The Saturday following the Founders Day Festival, September 21, will see the Second Annual State Fiddling Championship hosted at the Hagood Mill, Kelley said.

He said the fiddling championship is becoming the Hagood Mill's biggest event, “by sheer numbers.”

“If you're planning to attend the state fiddling championship, I suggest you get there early because our big parking lot will fill up fast,” Kelley said. “It's a wonderful thing that we have that. It's something we're very proud of, to put on every year.”