Bob Foos
The absence of Mining Days in Webb City is almost over.
Bryan Waggoner, director of parks and recreation, is announcing that the city is “bringing it back.”
It will be held on Saturday, Sept. 12, from one end of King Jack Park to the other.
There was a Mining Days Celebration Committee that put on the original festival each fall, with the goal of making enough money to construct a community building. It replaced a fall festival, beginning in 1980, and helped popularize King Jack Park.
After the goal was reached and several festivals were centered aroung the new Mining Days Community Building, the committee announced that for the first time in 28 years, there would be no Mining Days Festival in 2008.
Waggoner says the new version won’t be a carbon copy of the original, but he hopes to have volunteers help bring back much of the tradition.
It’s too late to book a carnival this year, but Waggoner says he hopes to eventually create a carnival atmosphere.
So far for this year, he says plans are being made for a car show, live entertainment all day, food trucks, arts and crafts vendors, a dog show, remote control boat races in the lake and lots of bounce houses.
Charlie 22 Outdoors will be holding a drawing for a Ford Bronco.
Mining Days is replacing Cruise-A-Palooza, the event that was held annually on the Saturday after the Fourth of July.
This year, Waggoner says a longer fireworks show is scheduled for Friday, July 3.