Jubilee Day

Posted on July 15, 2024

Billed as the largest longest running one day street fair on the East Coast, Mechanicsburg’s “Jubilee Day” has traditionally kicked off local summers to celebrate for almost 100 years. The seed of the idea began in 1923 when merchants attended a town wide event in Gettysburg and wanted something similar to happen in Mechanicsburg. The next year, on May 10, 1924, the first Farmers and Merchants Jubilee Day took place. In the early years, the celebration had a farmer’s focus including agricultural and livestock focus displays with judging of chicken, butter, eggs, and cattle. As years passed, Jubilee Day evolved from farming as the area around Mechanicsburg developed. By the mid 1930’s the name shortened to Jubilee Day and is now held on the third Thursday in June (exceptions included an August celebration in 1928 to coincide with the borough’s centennial and a July 1st celebration to celebrate America’s Bicentennial).

There were years when Jubilee Day event was not able to be held during WWII. As well as a rained-out event in 1955 and during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021. Jubilee day is the largest longest running one day street fair on the East Coast attracting 70,000 attendees. The 94th edition of this annual event features 325 vendors from far and near offering food, games, arts, crafts, business information, retail products, carnival rides and more. There is also a children’s animal area, activities for the very young, and a live music entertainment on two stages. The festival is held on Main Street extending from Walnut Street, York Street, South Market Street, and to East Simpson Street. The corner of North Market Street in the parking lot of the Citizens bank is reserved for a petting zoo and pony rides. You can find all sorts of vendors with clothing, jewelry, food, and more. Our own Civil War and More bookstore is open for business during the parade too!

If you have never experienced Jubilee Day in Mechanicsburg, you are missing out! I can literally step out our apartment building and be in the action. All I have to do is walk South for one block and I am in the middle of Jubilee Day festivities. Usually, my first stop is to get a funnel cake they are delicious. Once I have eaten that I start my traverse of the vendors anything from jewelry to clothing to almost any kind of food and ice cream you want. There is even carnival rides and games for all. Though I do not partake in the rides or the games I like to see what type of vendors there are. Even the Mechanicsburg Fire Department gets into the action, they sell food and clothing, and they have a bingo game. The Mechanicsburg Museum had a booth during the fair and the Frankenberger Tavern which is part of the museum is open for tours. I have worked their booth on several Jubilee Day fairs over the years. As far as security, local and state police are out in force to block off traffic for the fair buses.

What is nice about the one-day is the fact that every year it gets better and better. On a normal day, walking from the east side of town to the west side of town just takes a few minutes but when you have crowds of over 70, 000 it takes a lot longer to traverse the fair. June 20, 2024, was the 94th annual Jubilee Day in Mechanicsburg and the vendors were setting up their booths for the thousands of expected hometown crowds and the thousands of outside visitors. I stepped out the front door of our apartment building and across the street was the petting zoo with lots of different animals from birds to lamas to small cattle to roosters and baby chicks. I took my camera to photograph as many of the vendor booths as possible. It was a very hot day with temps in the 90’s. So, with that in mind I did start to traverse the fair in a slow walk not to exert myself too much and get overheated. First, I went up West main street to see what type of vendors were lined up on both sides of the street. Once I got to York and Main, I had to turn around and saw people already packing the fair to buy things or get something to eat.

As I preceded in an easterly direction, I was looking for a place that sold funnel cakes which I love. I did find a food truck that was serving such a goody and continued on Main Street. One car dealership had parked cars there to block off any vehicles from entering, school buses were also brought in to prevent this from happening too. Police did patrol the fair on foot and bike and paramedics were on standby if needed. Thankfully there were no fire calls during this year’s fair as it did happen in previous fairs. I did go back to my apartment a couple of times during the day to cool off and to check on my cat to make sure she was alright with all the noise plus I needed a freshly charged battery for my camera. I did go out again to walk around the fair and get some lunch and I got a large fry for my lunch. I stopped into a local shop where many years ago a well know scene from a movie was shot and took some photos inside because it has been many years since it was last opened before the pandemic. The place was busy serving food and ice cream, and I was out walking the fair for a few more hours. I went home again to cool off and get rehydrated and check my emails.

After a short time back at my apartment, I headed out once more to the fair. It was still hot but the humidity was not too bad, so I did a little bit more walking, took more photos, and visited my friend and owner of the Civil War and More bookstore, Jim Schmick. There were other visitors who stopped into the shop and he and I talked to them about the Civil War events in Mechanicsburg and Harrisburg. I was there for a while just looking around his shop to see if there was something special to buy myself, but nothing caught my eye. So, I bid my friend a farewell and headed out for dinner. I stopped into our local Jo Jos Pizzeria and got myself a sub and fries for dinner. After dinner I walked back to the corner of main and market streets to decide if I had any further strength to go on, but I decided it was time to go home for the rest of the evening. The fair was still going strong until about 8:30pm when vendors started leaving and the fair ended at 9pm and the town cleanup began in earnest. What still amazes me each year is to how quickly the town reopens, and traffic resumes back to normal by early Friday morning. When I awoke you could not tell we literally had several thousand visitors who came to the fair. So, another Jubilee day is finished…See you all in June 2025!