Oliver Springs plans ‘October Sky Festival’ for Saturday, Oct. 21
Visitors jam Arrowhead Park in Oliver Springs for the annual October Sky Festival last year, which commemorates the “October Sky” movie’s use of the Oliver springs area as a primary shooting location for the film in 1998. This year’s festi- val is set for Saturday, Oct. 21. (photo:G Chambers Williams III )
This year’s daylong “October Sky Festival” is expected to attract more than 100 vendors, and draw thousands of visitors.
During the event in the south end of downtown, the Oliver Springs Historical Society Museum will also be open, and guided tours will be available.
The historic downtown railroad depot will also be open, allowing visitors to see how it felt to be a station manager, conductor or engineer. The museum has a vintage caboose that will be open to visitors, as well.
The movie, starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Laura Dern and Chris Cooper, told the story of Homer Hickam Jr., a coal miner’s son who grew up in a small West Virginia mining town, where he began building model rockets rather than developing an interest into following his father into the mines.
Based on Hickam’s autobiography, “Rocket Boys,” the film was shot primarily on location in Oliver Springs and the surrounding area, and chronicled Hickam’s foray into rocket building after seeing the news about the Soviet Union’s launch of Sputnik, the first satellite launched into space.
Cooper plays his father, Homer Hickam Sr., who isn’t amused by his son’s interest in rockets, and Dern plays his science teacher, who encouraged his rocket hobby. Homer Hickam Jr. went on to become a NASA rocket engineer, whose father finally came around to his point of view.
The annual festival celebrates the film and pays homage to the community where much of the filming was done. According to the Internet Movie Database (IMDb), nearby Petros was the film’s main set for Hickam’s West Virginia mining community, while Oliver Springs was used for “business and residence locations.”
Other sites for the movie’s production included Wartburg (where the model rockets were launched), Oak Ridge, Harriman, Knoxville, and the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum in Chattanooga.
The movie was shot from Feb. 23-April 30, 1998, and was released in February 1999.
Annually, the festival even includes model-rocket launches, along with entertainment, food and crafts vendors, games, and even a collector-car show.
Most of the activity takes place in Oliver Springs’ Arrowhead Park, along with the events at the train depot and the Historical Society Museum.