THIS IS OUR TOWN,
THIS IS OUR COMMUNITY,
THIS IS OUR …
Delphos Canal Days is celebrating its 51st year as a small-town, end-of-the-summer premier festival. The mission for Canal Day is ” to plan a fun filled positive family festival for Delphos and the surrounding communities ” and with the help of hundreds of community volunteers and sponsors we get that done.
Canals Days originated in the 1950s as a Dollar Days/Car Show Festival, with a huge parade of old classic cars (1927 and older).
Merchants dressed in old-fashioned, pioneer-style clothes to lure the customers in to shop. Downtown Delphos was booming with retail stores at that time and everyone looked forward to checking out the bargains during Old Fashioned Bargain Days.
In the first years of the festival, several well-known celebrities were invited to Delphos to sign autographs and to be showcased in the grand parade.As the year’s went on, the name was changed to Old Fashioned Days. All the downtown merchants held sidewalk sales and the entertainment began. Kids rode the amusement rides for free during the ’60s and they still showcased the antique cars along with local high school bands in the BIG parade.
By 1968, the name went through another change to Old Fashioned Canal Days. This was the era that the Miami Erie Canal history started to be highlighted for the festival and its preservation begun. Invited to participate in Canal Days were the mayors of each city along the canal route from Cincinnati to Toledo and two boys from the Cincinnati area canoed via the route of the old canal to Delphos and were honored during the festival. The parade was growing in leaps and bounds to over 150 entries.
The ’70s brought more of the same and the festival changed with new games and activities added each year. Contests were offered to just about every age bracket such as a nail-pounding contest, sack races, watermelon eating, pie eating and the evening record hops were free for the teenagers. Food vendors started their debut and brought along that great taste of greasy fair food.
Many activities were planned in the canal. They played a tug of war over the waterway, had canoe races and log rolling — something that would be “gross” now-a-days. In 1974, the major attraction was a red, white and blue hot air balloon and Thunder Chicken. The parade route came straight through the downtown area with the sidewalks fully lined with spectators for the big finale.
Old Fashioned Canal Days was shortened to just Canal Days for a while in the early ’80s and the bed races began. (Who would want to push a bed down Main Street while dressed in a costume?) Flea markets, quilt shows, arts and crafts, band shows, old-timers softball tournaments and a Canal Days auction highlighted that Canal Days era. The 5K Run began, the Delphos Historical Museum was opened for viewing and an Old Fashioned Style Show was held at the Presbyterian Church for the ladies.
More community involvement brought new and bigger ideas for ways to entertain people of the community. In 1991, Canal Days was changed to Delphos Heritage Festival. The committee at that time felt this a more appropriate title for the event because that weekend in
September was the time to reminisce the history and events that brought settlers to this area. Folk fair & music, historical tours, genealogy displays and the “Rendevous” encampment began to help create a more pioneer-style feel to the festival. The Delphos Canal
Commission resurrected the Marguerite from the depths of the Miami Erie Canal and the old canal boat was highlighted during the mid ’90s Heritage Festival.
The festival went back to Old Fashioned Canal Days in 1997. Country music, line dancing, Southern Breeze, the Indoorfins — the tabloid from the Delphos Herald was 20 pages long with information about Canal Days and the “Bud Girls” were on display for two hours under the social tent.
In 1999, the Queens pageant was in it’s 30th year; the Jaycees were running the beer tent and the Keystone Cops came along and arrested you if you looked stupid or didn’t have a beard or mustache. The fines were used to purchase benches for the downtown area. And believe it or not, the bed races were back — for a couple of years anyways.
Today, Canal Days is still trying to be improved upon. New ideas come and go but overall we understand that what we are celebrating during the third weekend of September is our community spirit. As long as Delphos is “our” town then Canal Days will be “our” hometown festival.