Cave City Watermelon Festival
When the Cave City Chamber of Commerce began looking at ways to best promote the town, their two options included the cave located in the middle of town or having the “world’s sweetest” watermelons. Chamber officials didn’t believe a “Cave Festival” sounded very appealing, but a Watermelon Festival did!
The Cave City Watermelon Festival debuted in 1980, featuring a parade, live music, and a handful of craft and food vendors. In the past 44 years, the Watermelon Festival has grown into a three-day event complete with vendors and activities for folks of all ages. Grammy Award winning entertainers as well as some of Arkansas’ best and brightest perform in free concerts thanks to the generosity of our incredible local businesses. Family and school reunions are frequently planned around festival weekend; it is the perfect time to experience the feeling of home, even if you aren’t from here.
Front and center at our festival are the watermelons. The highlight of our celebration is 10,000 pounds of the world’s sweetest watermelons provided free of charge by registered growers. People from across the United States travel to Cave City every summer for our unbeatable watermelons.
The Cave City Watermelon Festival graciously donated a number of pictures and commemorative t-shirts to OIRM for us to display in our Smithsonian Institution traveling exhibit, FOOD. OIRM was one of only six small museums in the United States chosen to showcase the exhibit, and we want this exhibit to showcase YOU. If you or your organization has any photos, mementos, or merchandise related to the culture of food, please contact Cathy Shonk at 870 793-2121. You have the choice of loaning us objects for approximately two years, or donating the objects to the museum. The FOOD exhibit begins in January 2024 and runs for 18 months. We are excited about exhibiting our local food culture!
