Vintage Photos From the First National Peanut Festival, 1941

The first National Peanut Festival opened in Suffolk in January 1941. It included a parade, dances and balls and coronation of a queen. A newspaper editor the morning of the first fete summed up the excitement in town: “Within a few hours the curtain will rise on Suffolk’s first annual National Peanut Festival.… The whole city has been a beehive of activity. Cooperation has been had from every civic group, every private citizen and from the world at large.… The publicity which has been received already from all over the nation … [does] credit to Suffolk and the peanut industry.”

Around 10,000 people showed up for the first festival, a number that swelled to around 50,000 by the time the event was held again that very same year, October 30-31.

The festival held room enough for 100,000 people. Indeed, on October 15, 1941, the Virginia Farm Bureau boasted that “close to 100,000 people are expected” for the second annual celebration. The same article went on to say, “The two-day celebration will feature parades, parties, dances, coronation of the queen, and tours of the peanut industry.” How better to celebrate Halloween?

Virginia Farm Bureau News, Volume 1, Number 10, October 15, 1941.

The modern predecessor of today’s Suffolk Peanut Festival was celebrated in September 1978 in downtown Suffolk. Called “Harvest Fest” and produced by the local Chamber of Commerce, the event featured a parade, a hot-air balloon event, a carnival, dances, concerts and a festival queen. The festival was a downtown tradition until the event moved to the municipal airport in 1981.

For four days each October, Suffolk Peanut Fest now draws some 125,000 people and has won the accolades of professional festival organizations and national magazines.