Archive for Friday, August 10, 2007
Annual 'Lettuce Celebrate' event highlights Yampa's agricultural heritage
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Karen Tussey/Courtesy
An unidentified man tends to his thriving lettuce patch in Yampa in the 1920s. Yampa was a pinnacle producer of lettuce and spinach crops.
Yampa Bring your favorite salad dressing, it's time to celebrate Yampa's favorite vegetable - lettuce.
Saturday's second annual "Lettuce Celebrate" features a garden tour and luncheon spotlighting Yampa's flower and vegetable gardens and highlighting the town's agricultural community.
The event kicks off at 9:30 a.m. with a horse-drawn carriage tour of the town's gardens. Blast from the Past Carriages of Yampa is providing the tour accompanied by local historian Rita Herold's historical perspective on the area's "cash crop." A food contest, potluck luncheon, "Watermelon Crawl" cake walk with watermelon prizes, Yampa Egeria Museum tours, a display at the Yampa Library and a historical pictorial featuring garden photos by Hildred Fogg will round out the day.
Arlene Porteus, events coordinator for the Yampa-Egeria Historical Society, said incorporating 'lettuce' into the celebration was the easy part.
"I've been going around saying, 'Lettuce be happy. Lettuce celebrate. Lettuce dance,'" she said. "It'll be a fun day."
Porteus said the Yampa-Egeria Historical Society wanted to bring back the event after introducing it last year during Yampa's centennial celebration.
"Because we had a lot of lettuce fields in the area, we decided this was a good way to highlight our heritage and the beautiful vegetable and floral gardens that grow here," she said.
Yampa's Swiss chard and hollyhocks have done particularly well this year, she said.
"It has been a good year for gardening in Yampa," she said. "We have some real unique gardens down here."
Those interested in taking the guided tour should meet at 9:30 a.m. at Yackey Park in Yampa. The potluck will begin at about 11 a.m.
Viewers also will have a chance to vote for the town's best vegetable garden, best floral garden and best culinary creation.
Porteus said she hopes more Routt County residents head south Saturday.
"We want to share our beautiful gardens and heritage with whoever wants to come and eat some lettuce," she said.


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