Re-enactors participate in colonial-life games, including caber toss at the village of Covington’s 2023 Fort Rowdy Gathering held annually during the Labor Day holiday weekend.
Courtesy photo | Lisa Wenrick
A camp set up by one of the re-enactors living colonial-life at the village of Covington’s 2023 Fort Rowdy Gathering held annually during the Labor Day holiday weekend.
Courtesy photo | Lisa Wenrick
By Sheryl Roadcap
COVINGTON — The 32st annual Fort Rowdy Gathering will return to the Covington Community Park Saturday, Aug.31, through Monday, Sept. 2, for Labor Day weekend.
On Saturday and Sunday, the gathering will be held from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m; and on Monday, the festival will go from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
“Take a walk over the bridge and go back in time to the 1800s, when you will see how life was back then!” said information provided by the Fort Rowdy Board. “From the way they lived in tents, cooked over the fire, played games, music and much more! Please join us for an experience you and your family will learn from and enjoy!
Rebecca Baker, member of the Fort Rowdy Board of Directors, encourages everyone to come out to this year’s Gathering.
“This is an amazing, fun field festival for all ages,” Baker said by email. “We have more vendors, and more food and things this year then we have had in last couple of years.”
The gathering, first held on Oct. 2 and 3 in 1993, takes place in Covington Community Park each year. The date of the event was changed several years ago from the first weekend in October to Labor Day weekend. This annual weekend offers a firsthand look at pioneer life pre-dating the civil war, and commemorating the founding of Fort Rowdy as a supply fort for General “Mad” Anthony Wayne and his forces in the 1790s.
The gathering is separated into two sides, the park side and the encampment side. They are separated by the Stillwater River, and are connected by a roughly 200-foot-footbridge. It is annually erected prior to the festival and removed at the end of the event. Attendees will travel across the suspended bridge and will find an encampment full of historical re-enactments and campers dressed in full period dress, giving demonstrations about life on the frontier.
The festival will have a variety of craft and food vendors, offering many homemade items and serving a multitude of food options, including Covington Christian Church serving its signature chicken and noodles, along with other favorites such as kettle corn, brats, hot dogs, funnel cakes, waffles, snow cones and more.
Events to look forward to during annual Fort Rowdy Gathering includes several music acts performing at the main stage on the park side, a pie and cookie baking contest, an auction that includes the pies, and several pioneer-life contests for campers to engage in, which the public may observe. The funds goes toward the next year’s festival.
Organizers typically expect between 2,000 to 3,000 people to attend during the weekend and between 80-90 camps to set up. Those who who wish to be part of the encampment, may still register to camp. Campers must be dressed and set up in pre-1800 clothes and gear and be set up by 10 a.m. on Saturday morning. Also, one person must be 18 or older.
For more information on the festival or to purchase tickets for encampment, please visit the gathering’s Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/fortrowdygathering
