Variety of fun activities planned for Waitsburg festival

By Loretto J. Hulse, Herald food writer

WAITSBURG -- Few places exist where you can see someone hand dipping candles, churning butter and hand sewing a wheat sack.

But you can check out these activities in Waitsburg. The small burg with the historical downtown is also where -- for more than 50 years -- members of the Waitsburg Commercial Club have served up a tasty dinner once a year of alder-smoked salmon with all the fixings.

Sunday is the annual Pioneer Fall Festival & Buffalo Feed held in and on the grounds of the Bruce Mansion & Museum on Main Street. The festival, organized by the Waitsburg Historical Society, opens with a non-denominational church service at 11 a.m. but the real fun begins at 12:30 p.m. when the vendors open their booths, the museum doors unlock for tours and over all floats the delicious aroma of grilling buffalo.

Waitsburg Lions Club members are in charge of the grilling and serving up of generous plates of buffalo meat, corn on the cob, coleslaw and other picnic-type sides. Cost of the dinner is $8 for adults, $5 for children. Soft drinks and coffee will be available but alcoholic beverages won't.

"This is strictly a family oriented event," said Anita Baker, one of the many festival volunteers.

Additional food vendors will be selling a variety of old-fashioned treats such as pie and ice cream, root beer floats and cookies and lemonade.

If you're still in town when the festival closes down, about 5 p.m., check back at the buffalo feed booth.

"Any leftover roasts will be for sale," said Anita's husband, Tom Baker, another longtime volunteer.

The Bruce Mansion & Museum will be open for free tours. Plus there's a carriage house with buggies and sleighs on display, even an old-fashioned school room on the grounds.

The Bruce Mansion was built in 1883 by William and Caroline Bruce, who lived there about 10 years before they died. Their descendants continued to occupy the mansion until the 1920s, when it became the Waitsburg library.

"From the late 1940s to the 1960s it stood empty except for piles of books and magazines left when the library closed," said Anita Baker.

The Waitsburg Historical Society formed in the 1970s and, using donations, completely restored the mansion.

"We made it as close to it was in the late 1800s as we could using pictures and word of mouth. There's no running water, no electricity, no flushing toilets. It's just like it was back then," she said.

Furnishings, household items and clothing displayed in the museum have all been donated from people in the Waitsburg area.

On the mansion grounds, arts and crafts vendors will have everything from watercolors to lavender wands and wreaths, wooden carved candle holders to items made of old barn wood, antique bottles to western wear displayed at the festival.

The Boy Scouts will have an antique cider press set up and working, and Dutch ovens will be simmering over hot coals. There will be candle making, butter churning and a couple of men showing how to fill and hand stitch bags of wheat.

Museum tours will stop for an hour at 2 p.m. for a fashion show featuring wedding gowns gathered from the ladies in the Waitsburg area.

"There are some very old ones and some that are pretty new. They really span many years, many decades," Anita Baker said.

Musical entertainment will include bluegrass and gospel bands and singers, a harmonica player and a barbershop quartet.

Any proceeds from the festival -- which Anita Baker said are nominal -- go into a fund for community events.

"We try to keep things at not quite 1890 prices, but reasonable," she said.

The following Saturday, Sept. 26, is the Waitsburg Commercial Club's 52nd annual salmon barbecue. The event begins at 6 p.m. in the Don Thomas Community Building on the race track grounds and goes until the salmon runs out, usually about 8:30 p.m.

"It's a well attended affair. We've had as many as 1,100 people in past years," said Tom Baker, a long-time member of the Commercial Club.

"It's an interesting evening. There's no entertainment but people enjoy visiting and eating," he said.

The menu features alder wood-smoked salmon, baked potatoes, fresh coleslaw and garlic bread. Cost is $20 presale, $25 at the gate. There's a no host beer and wine bar so you must be 21 or older to attend.

The fish -- ordered in fresh -- are done in a large pit barbecue. The salmon are laid on a framework covered in chicken wire and topped with a second frame sandwich style.

"That makes it easier to flip the fish," Tom Baker said.

"The cooks are a couple of guys who have done it for 30 years or more so they know their business," he said.

Tickets are available at the Walla Walla Valley Chamber of Commerce, 29 E. Sumach St., Walla Walla, and various businesses in Waitsburg.

To buy them with a credit card over the phone, call Jeff Broom, 509-337-6688, or John Stellwagen at Waitsburg Hardware, 509-337-6671. Phone orders will be held at the gate.

Proceeds from the barbecue go into a fund for community events.

-- Loretto J. Hulse: 582-1513; lhulse@tricityherald.com; more food news at www.tricityherald.com/lifestyles/food

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Saturday, Sep. 19, 2009

Variety of fun activities planned for Waitsburg festival

By Loretto J. Hulse, Herald food writer