Exchange Place Fall Folk Arts Festival, 2023

Exchange Place Living History Farm ushers in autumn with its annual Fall Folk Arts Festival on Saturday, September 23, from 10 am until 5 pm, and Sunday, September 24 from noon until 5 pm.
Admission is $5, with those under the age of 12 admitted free. This festival is designed not only to feature traditional artisans, but is also a fundraiser to enable Exchange Place to care for the buildings, grounds, and animals that live there year ’round.
Artists from throughout the region will gather to demonstrate and sell a wide array of traditional folk arts as well as hand-crafted arts of today. Guilds and artisans will pass along the knowledge and skills of yesteryear to the next generation. The Harvest Market areas will offer fall produce, plants, and seasonal crafts.
On Saturday, a sorghum making demonstration will again be among the other happenings at this year’s festival. Sorghum cane will be squeezed through the mule-powered mill until around noon, then cooked on a wood-fired furnace the rest of the afternoon.
Many other demonstrations and hands-on activities will help make history come alive throughout the farm. In the Cook’s cabin our energetic Junior Apprentices will prepare some of the foods the Preston family would have eaten in the mid nineteenth century. The anvil will be ringing in the blacksmith’s shop as the smithy demonstrates the various tasks that made the smithy such a valuable crafts person in antebellum America.
Children’s activities abound as young folks are encouraged to create games as well as do the “chores,” just as a child might have done in 1850.
Ol’ timey foods will be available for purchase, including kettle corn, funnel cakes, fried pies, barbecue, soup beans and corn bread, and more. As always during festivals, the grounds of the farmstead will be alive with music. Old and new favorites will be playing throughout the weekend.
Exchange Place is a living history farm whose mission is to preserve and interpret the heritage of mid-nineteenth century farm life in Northeast Tennessee. Exchange Place is a non-profit organization maintained and operated entirely by volunteers and is supported by donations, fundraisers, memberships and grants.