On Saturday, Sept 27, the town of Hardy will be celebrating its founding in the year 1883 with the annual Hardy Homesteader Day, a free family-friendly festival held from 9 AM to 3 PM at Loberg Park, featuring food, apparel, and activities from the time period put on by the Hardy History Association. We recently had the opportunity to chat with the event chairperson, Crystal Gray, about what makes this such a popular attraction every year. Indeed, her personal commitment to carrying on Hardy Homesteader Day, now in its 33rd year, has ensured that this celebration of local history continues to delight and educate both young and old. Crystal has been the chairperson for 4 years, and although she had no experience coordinating such events prior to accepting this position, she vividly recalls her own parents’ involvement in heading a town festival for over a decade. So she was prepared for the intense labor of love attendant to her duties as Chair. Fortunately, Crystal can also rely on an excellent committee of 20 to 24 volunteers, along with a group of 10 to 15 high school students helping out and hoping to be awarded an available scholarship for their efforts.

Event attendees will discover an array of activities to transport them back to the pioneer days of the late 1800s; highlights include: the over 100 lbs of beans cooked over an open fire, the famously scrumptious hoe cakes (a type of cornbread pancake) cooked on a wood stove and served with homemade apple butter, and of course the iconic covered chuck wagons on display. Along with traditional tasty treats to enjoy like cobblers, fried pies, and molasses and sugar cookies, Crystal notes the popularity of contests for the public to participate in, vying for the title of best 1883 attire, best beard, and a competition to “dress-up” your ATV “mule” to look like a mule or a mule drawn wagon. Additionally, each year Hardy Homesteader Day aims to feature an all-new exhibit, this year’s attraction being a dairy farmer demonstrating milking a cow and making use of fresh milk products. If animals are of particular interest, Crystal suggests checking out the beautiful Shire horses offering rides and pulling the chuck wagons.

An array of demonstrations make Hardy Homesteader Day a genuine educational experience; see corn being shelled and turned into hoe cakes, observe butter churning, spinning, quilting, and lye soap-making. Watch the two-man crosscut saw hew cedar logs into slices that children can have branded with the words “Hardy, Arkansas” for a special souvenir. Kids can also play with historic toys and games; from rag dolls to button spinners to flint arrowheads to classic hoop games, kids will find something special to bring home. All of this fun is free of charge, made possible by donations and sponsorships through the Hardy History Association, the organization that also runs the Hardy History Museum and coordinates year-round programming focused on longtime residents, town founders, and railroad history.

So whether you come to hear the country bands play, to taste the (non-alcoholic) refreshments at the replica saloon, to smell the 4,000 piping hot hoe cakes cooking on 3 wood stoves, or just to have a look at all of the period clothing and accoutrements, Crystal assures us you are bound to be enchanted as you step back in time for a day. Her favorite part of her job as chairperson, after the months of exhaustive planning and the week-long set-up at the park location, is getting to finally stand back and watch the families bonding over the traditional ways and creating memories to last a lifetime.

For more details, please visit the Hardy Homesteader Day Facebook page; also keep an eye out for ads in print and on TikTok. The event will be held on the appointed date unless there is severe weather, in which case the rain date is the following Saturday. Crystal notes that the event has never needed to be rescheduled since her time as Chair. Indeed, much like the pioneers the event is intended to celebrate, the Hardy Homesteader Day volunteers are not readily dissuaded from their mission. So come enjoy a day of living history, and learn something new about the old ways right here in the heart of Hardy.