2006: Central Squash
No world record for Keene, but Pumpkin Fest drew a crowd
Freeman Klopott reporting
The Keene Sentinel
The seams of Keene's downtown were bursting Saturday as a record-breaking crowd squeezed itself into the tight bookends of Main Street and spilled onto side streets, celebrating the annual Pumpkin Festival.
Unfortunately, not every attendee brought a pumpkin. No Guiness World Records were broken this year - at least not by Keene.
By evening a solid wall of people extended from Central Square's tower of Jack-o-lanterns to its mirror image on the far end of Main Street.
As of 10 p.m. Saturday, Center Stage, which runs the festival, reported 80,000 people packing the sidewalks of downtown Keene.
The previous attendance record of 70,000 was set in 2004.
But despite the near quadrupling of the city's population, the number of pumpkins fell well short of breaking the Guinness World Record for the most lit jack-o-lanterns in one place, set by Keene in 2003. That honor went to Boston, which also held its featival Saturday.
Boston came through with 30,128 lit jack-o-lanterns, beating out Keene's 2003 record of 28,952.
Center Stage counted 24,682 carved and lit pumpkins in Keene this year.
The shoulder-to-shoulder traffic on Main Street, however, helped fill the coffers of the non-profit organizations that lined the sides of the city's main thoroughfare. The open wallets of thousands also boosted sales at the craft fair on Gilbo Avenue.
Festival coordinator Suzanne L. Woodward pointed to the weather as the key to the festival's success in 2006.
"If the weather had been like last night, I don't think we'd be looking at these numbers," Woodward said Saturday.
Friday night, strong storms not only knocked down power lines, but also blew a few pumpkins from their perches atop the four towers that marked the edges of the festival.
Among the victims that fell from the Railroad Square tower was a series of pumpkins with a wedding proposal carved into them, said festival director Marianne McGauley.
When John Baybutt, owner of Baybutt Construction Corp., which set up that tower, discovered the missing links in the proposal, McGauley said, he had his crew carve the needed letters.
The extra work was not in vain. The proposal was accepted, McGauley said.
And the bad weather came to a halt and Saturday morning, bringing cool temperatures and a clear, blue sky that lasted all day.
That brought out people and their wallets.
With two hours left to the festival, tape covered sold-out menu items at many of the popular food stands on Main Street.
Boy Scout Troop 206 of Chesterfield had sold out of six of the 10 items on its menu. Hot dogs and hamburgers were gone; only coffee, soda and other liquids remained.
The Jerusalem Lodge Free Masons said the doubling of their sales from last year put them in a tight spot when they ran out of beef stew.
When the Masons ran out of stew they scrambled and came up with clam chowder, said Free Mason Bernie Russell of West Swanzey.
They sold out of that in about half an hour, he said.
The Community Church of Harrisville and cheshire has been at the festival every year, and every year they sell out of their 1,000 sausages, said church member Priscilla Coffill of Harrisville.
But this year a constant 20 person line stood its ground in front of the church's booth for more than three hours, causing the group to run out of nachos, which usually doesn't happen, Coffill said.
And with two hours left to the festival, she said, it looked like the sausage supply was once again not going to make it to the end.
Over at the craft fair, first timer The Jelly Maker's Daughter of Kittery, Maine, had brisk sales throughout the day, said Brian Jones, who was helping out head jelly chef Tyler Larkin.
"It definitely beat expectations," Jones said.
"We'll be back next year," he said. "Absolutely."
