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Heritage Days is a three-day arts, crafts, and entertainment street festival held in downtown Rogersville, Tennessee during the second, full weekend of October each year. Organized around a harvest and history theme, the festival began in 1978.
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Early history
Hawkins County Heritage Days began in October 1978 when a small crowd gathered despite a downpour on the Courthouse Square in downtown Rogersville to help raise funds for the nascent Rogersville Heritage Association.
The organization, whose purpose is to "preserve, protect, promote, and celebrate heritage of Rogersville, Tennessee," envisioned an annual event to commemorate the historic town and to emulate the nineteenth century harvest festivals that Rogersville had seen after the American Civil War.
The Festival Today
Since its beginnings, Heritage Days has grown to an annual estimated crowd of almost 40,000 persons, more than six times the population of Rogersville.
The event is still sponsored by the Rogersville Heritage Association, and it still gathers artisans, craftsmen and women, and entertainers to perpetuate the mountain arts and way of life that have slowly vanished from the hills of East Tennessee.
The Southeast Tourism Society, a regional promoter of tourism and excellence in tourism programming, recognized Heritage Days as a "Top Twenty Event in the Southeast for October". The festival has been a multiple winner at Tennessee Festivals and Events. In 2014 Oliver Pelle performed on Main Street for Heritage Days.