Volcano Days sees renewed interest
By DAVE PAYNE Sr., dpayne@newsandsentinel.comVOLCANO - It hasn't been that long since Volcano Days was nearly scrapped.
That was anything but obvious at the revitalized Volcano Days Festival at Mountwood Park Saturday as the event saw a renewed vigor. The two-day event continues today.
"It's bigger and better," said Lori Arthur, events coordinator. "It's built back up, I haven't seen a Volcano Days like this since years before."
Jack Mathers, Mountwood board president, said the Wood County Flywheelers, a group of antique engine enthusiasts, breathed new life into the old festival.
"They have done an unbelievable job working with the park director to revitalize this. Three or four years ago, the board voted to cancel the festival, the park was in debt and the festival had been a money loser for years. The Flywheelers said they could take it over and make it successful. They certainly did," he said.
By 4 p.m. Saturday, the festival had taken in $3,000 just in donations at the gate.
The event is sponsored by the Wood County Flywheelers' Club, Mountwood Park and Friends of Mountwood Park. Reba Collins was named Miss Volcano after winning a pageant Sept. 6.
She will preside over the festival and is eligible to compete in the West Virginia Fairs and Festivals pageant in January.
Patty Cooper portrayed Red Neck Nellie, an actual person who was proprietress of The Golden Horn, a house of ill-repute during Volcano's oil boom.
"The Golden Horn was on the main street of Volcano. It had the finest furnishings, with carpet and drapes imported all the way from Pittsburgh. It was here about 15 years, until it burned in the great fire of 1873," Cooper said.
Cooper said she was pleased with this year's festival's emphasis on history.
"There are more people here and more history for them to see," she said.
Most of the engines on display are operated by natural gas and even the occasional steam engine that is seen at the event usually was converted to run on natural gas decades or even a century before. Clarksburg resident Keith Mason, however, brought an operating steam engine, which was fueled with wood. The engine was a Spence engine built in 1883 by the Ohio Valley Agricultural Works in Martins Ferry, Ohio.
He purchased it in the mid-1960s from an 85-year old man who had helped his father store the engine away in a barn in 1914. It had been used to power a rock crusher.
The engine sat idle for more than a half-century and was covered with dirt and junk lumber. Mason said he worked 763 hours restoring it. The engine was complete with a working steam-operated fan to keep operators relatively cool, he said.
Re-enactors Greg Buskirk and Dennis Carder, of the 17th Virginia (dismounted) Cavalry, had a Civil War campsite at the festival.
"So much of our history has been forgotten," Buskirk said. "We want to help people remember it. That's why we are here."
Parkersburg resident Jacob Allen, 4, was especially impressed with the chainsaw-carving demonstrations.
"He cut some art up," Allen said.
Saturday's performances included The West Virginia University Woodsmen Team, Rocky Mountain Bluegrass, Ramblin' Country, South of the River, Independence Road, Buckeye Travelers, Laurel Creek and the Sheppard Brothers.
Wagon transportation will be provided today from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
