October Sky Festival returns this Saturday
Visitors to a previous October Sky Festival stroll through Arrowhead Park in Oliver Springs, where most of the annual event takes place. More than 100 vendors are expected to be set up throughout the park for this year’s festival on Saturday. (photo:G. Chambers Williams III )
The annual festival usually brings thousands of visitors to the town, and runs from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
It’s held primarily in the city’s Arrowhead Park south of downtown, but it also includes the Oliver Springs Historical Society Museum.
Fast N Classy Car Club will hold its annual October Sky car show in the downtown area from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Oliver Springs’ historic downtown railroad depot will also be open to allow visitors to see how it felt to be a station manager, conductor or engineer. The museum has a vintage caboose that visitors can walk through.
“October Sky,” starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Laura Dern and Chris Cooper, told the story of Homer Hickam Jr., a coal miner’s son who grew up to become a rocket scientist.
It’s set in a small West Virginia mining town, where he began building model rockets rather than following his father into the mines.
Annually, the festival even includes model-rocket launches, along with entertainment, food and crafts vendors, games, and even a collector-car show.