Day Trips: Heritage festival or classic car show? Both are free Saturday in Old Fort

How do you like your history?

Some folks like to watch smiths, potters and other artisans demonstrating time-honored crafts in traditional ways. Others just want to be served up something like a mint-condition 1975 Chevrolet Bel Air convertible that’s wearing whitewalls.

This Saturday in Old Fort – less than two hours northwest of Charlotte in McDowell County – you can have either. Or both. For free.

From 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., the Mountain Gateway Museum & Heritage Center is staging the 31st annual Pioneer Days Festival on the downtown museum’s grounds. Craft demos are featured, with Appalachian skills in the spotlight. There are also exhibits, authors, musicians, vintage farm equipment, wagon rides, children’s games and vendors.

In celebration of the 150th anniversary of the end of the Civil War this month, you can also view the original flag of the 58th North Carolina Infantry, which came from McDowell and other counties in the Foothills and mountain area. Along those lines Saturday, activities also include an encampment on the grounds with re-enactors portraying Confederate soldiers. (Re-enactment events continue Sunday.)

Meanwhile, within rifleshot or car backfire, the Mountain Thunder Car Show will be underway on Commerce Street behind Town Hall. It’s a growing automotive beauty show that began as an adjunct to Pioneer Days but acquired a life of its own. Put on by Old Fort’s Route 70 Cruisers club, it draws 300-400 classic cars and trucks.

It’s an open show, with vehicles both ancient (a man from Raleigh is bringing an 1892 surrey once pulled by horses) and modern – present-day Camaros and Corvettes. Very popular to view these days are the muscle cars from the mid-’60s to early ’70s – like early Mustangs or the Chevelle SS.

It’s not just area vehicles showing off. Last year, a guy from Michigan came down with his 1954 Ford truck, according to event co-chair Phillip Poe. Poe, by the way, has a dark green 1936 Ford coupe that pulls a matching reproduction of a 1936 Mullins trailer.

Vehicles at the 9 a.m.-2 p.m. rain-or-shine show will be all lined up, owners there to answer questions or talk about their cars and trucks.

You can buy a raffle ticket: The grand prize is a performance GM 350 Engine assembled by the Route 70 Cruisers. The engine, mounted on a stand there, will be cranking up. A sound system will play tunes from the ’60s and ’70s.

And if that’s not enough for one day, drop by the Arrowhead Gallery & Studios, between the two events, at 78 S. Catawba Ave. The grand opening of its Gallery Annex and classrooms debuts its “New Beginnings” show from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

This story was originally published April 23, 2015 at 4:00 PM with the headline "Day Trips: Heritage festival or classic car show? Both are free Saturday in Old Fort."