Joyce Park Events & Gatherings

October 5, 2024 (Saturday) is the Grand Ledge Fall Festival. When Covid-19 reduced the festival from three days to one, it was simply not practical to set up the MLHE encampment, and take it down again, in a single day. After 30 years on the island, our first time at 115 East Lincoln Street was in 2021. Joyce Park will again be our location in 2024. We hope you will join us there, and please let others know.

MICHIGAN LIVING HISTORY ENCOUNTERS
Kenn Kuester Memorial Event
October 3rd thru 6th, 2024

Our displays begin with the French fur trader period, which has been a part of the Grand Ledge Fall [formerly Color Cruise & Island] Festival for over thirty years. Furs and information signs will continue to highlight the importance of the fur trade in early Michigan history following European contact. Then we showcase tents primarily focused on the 1800s. New displays begun in 2021 also feature items, and progression, within the 1900s. Once more, a Native American Children's Teaching Garden (Three Sisters Garden), illustrates the native way of integrating crops together, each providing benefit to the whole.

The emphasis for Educators Day (both Thursday and Friday) is on home school groups, and classroom groups, but the general public is welcome as well. If an Educator/Leader tells us what time their group will be coming, we will arrange to have someone available to guide them from station to station.

Festival Day is our participation with the festival community in welcoming the general public to the Grand Ledge Fall Festival. We are just between two and three blocks up Bridge Street from the festival displays along River Street. We are on Lincoln Street less than one block away from the Grand Ledge Museum (on Lincoln Street across Bridge Street from us). The museum is also open on festival day. We hope you will come visit us both as a part of your Grand Ledge Fall Festival experience.

Founders Day is a casual day. Tents, and most displays, will still be up. It is our day to remember our founder, Kenn Kuester, other early participants, and the 30 years of Fall Color Cruise and Island Festival in general. Think of this as a class or family reunion to reminisce about the former three day Grand Ledge festival. Participants, presenters, volunteers, others who were involved in the festival, or if you just visited the festival and remember it fondly come join us . . . . family, friends, neighbors, and the general public are all welcome. Period dress is optional. Fires will be going. You are welcome to bring a picnic, or something to roast over the fire (we are not licensed to provide food to the general public).