History with ‘Hud’: 90 years of the Chadbourn Strawberry Festival
CHADBOURN, NC (WWAY) — The longest-running agricultural festival in North Carolina continues this week with the 90th Chadbourn Strawberry Festival.
Despite missing a few years due to the depression, war and, most recently, COVID, the festival has been a major part of the town’s history since first being held in 1926.
But long before Chadbourn was known as the “Strawberry Capital of the World”, the area was nothing but miles of sparsely-populated forest land. In the 1880s, founders even considered naming the town ‘Timberville’, due to developing large business in tar and turpentine. But that all changed in the years rounding out the 19th century, when the trees were clear-cut, leaving behind countless acres fertile soil.
With the timber industry gone, landowners sold off ground for ten dollars an acre, with hundreds of families soon arriving by train to jump on the deal. Within a decade, farms were producing thousands of barrels of strawberries each year.
The first mass-planting of strawberries came in the late 1890s, and was largely considered a failure. But over the next two decades, strawberries began to take off. In 1907, Chadbourn set a world record for a one day strawberry shipment. Between sunrise and sunset, over 15,000 workers harvested 1.1 million quarts of strawberries, kicking off Chadbourn’s nationwide recognition for producing the sweet fruit.
In the years following the first Strawberry Festival in May 1926, strawberry production fell dramatically due to farmers switching to easier-to-produce, and more valuable crop of tobacco.
But each spring, thousands of people still flock to the small Columbus County town to reflect on the importance strawberries have played for more than 100 years to the region.
