Hayden Festival offers glimpse into history: Annual event, museum celebrate community’s rich past

HAYDEN

The streets of Hayden filled again for the annual Hayden Festival on Saturday.

The festival’s rotating theme fell on Harvests Past this year, featuring antique tractor and farm equipment displays, a macro/mini-tractor pull, wheat threshing, a garden tractor pull, a parade of tractors through this Jennings County town and a steam engine spark show as well as the regular displays the Hayden Historical Museum offers.

The festival began after the museum opened in the 1990s, director Rodger Ruddick said.

“We wanted to designate a day in the year to highlight local history,” he said.

This year’s theme of Harvest Past salutes the local agricultural heritage, Ruddick said. The rotating themes give people the chance to see different things each year.

Since its inception, the festival has continued to grow, continuing to draw people from outside the area and call back those who grew up in the area and moved on, he said.

“It’s Hayden’s biggest day of the year,” Ruddick said.

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