Court Day: Kentucky’s oldest festival

Thousands of people from across the country return to Preston and Mt. Sterling for the annual court day festivities. Above, Preston Court Days last October in full swing. Photos by Jodi Cassidy.

This weekend is the annual Preston Court Day festival, which draws hundreds of vendors and thousands of people from all over the country.

Best known for dog, gun and antique sales, Court Days is also a social gathering where people come to meet friends and family; a kind of homecoming reunion for many.

The tradition of Court Days goes beyond what you see now; far beyond the merchandise, food and animals.

In fact, the origins are hundreds of years old and can be traced even back to the medieval days.

Before modern amenities, such as television, movies and phones, social gatherings were common.

Town festivals, fairs and circuses were abundant in the early years of Bath County’s history.

Every second Monday of the month was court days in Owingsville, where the county’s court trials were heard.

During those times, vendors would set up along the streets selling fresh foods and other goods farmers used in the day.

Along the back streets of Owingsville were the livestock auctions and markets where farmers could trade or buy cattle, horses, hogs and other animals.

Local taverns and saloons opened all day for the many who showed up for the festival like atmosphere.

Ministers would preach corner sermons to those who would listen and righteously condemn those saloon patrons up the street who were deemed as ‘ungodly’.

March, April and October were the largest gatherings at the county court days when major trials and grand juries were heard.

Spectacular courtroom arguments sometimes caused those partial to either party to become heated outside the courthouse and occasionally, a brawl would erupt.

Activity was much heavier during the spring and fall court days, as the planting and harvest seasons brought even more vendors into town.

In nearby Mount Sterling, Court Days is heralded as the ‘oldest continued festival in Kentucky’. It began in 1794, much like Owingsville’s version, but became a much larger event as the years passed.

Ending on the third Monday in October, the Mount Sterling Court Day Festival draws in excess of 200,000 people over the three-day event.

Several years ago in the tiny Bath County community of Preston, local residents decided to have their own version of court days, but at a much smaller scale.

Preston is a small community located a few miles southeast of Owingsville along Kentucky Highway 965, just past the Bourbon Iron Furnace.

Once a prosperous railroad town, Preston has always maintained a certain small town feel.

Preston Court Days was organized in 1970 by James Conyers.

During the same weekend of the Mount Sterling Court Day Festival, Preston turned into a market town where people gathered around Blevins’ Store, selling and trading mostly guns and hunting dogs.

Eventually, other local residents began to have yard sales and soon, the area where the C&O Railroad used to run through the town became a smaller version of the Mount Sterling Festival.

What started out as a gun and dog trade weekend quickly bloomed into something more.

More vendors started coming out to Preston to sell antiques and other whatnot’s since Mount Sterling’s vendor spaces were usually booked a year in advance and at a much higher price. Local landowners began to divide their fields and yards into areas vendors could set up their merchandise stands, and soon, the small market branched outward from the old railroad bed. Food booths began to arrive, filling the air with the smells of hamburgers, cooked ham and other tasty goods. Live musical entertainment and carnival rides began to appear in recent years. Preston Court Days has now ballooned into Bath County’s largest annual festival and attracts almost the same amount of people Mount Sterling does.

The only thing that once compared to Court Days was the Salt Lick Homecoming that was held each Labor Day Weekend.

These days, getting into Preston requires patience and occasional tenacity; traffic is sometimes backed up three miles to the Interstate 64 over pass on Kentucky 36.

It is bumper to bumper, but well worth the time spent in traffic looking at the beautiful scenery along Slate and Mill Creeks (along the way, the remains of the old Bourbon Iron Works is a good place to stop and see).

Once you arrive in Preston, the sight is just amazing; rows of tents, canopies and trailers fill the fields and yards along Kentucky 965, each filled with anything one could imagine.

Each year, the event gets a little bigger, but it is always a good social gathering for all.

County court may not be held to attract the vendors and patrons as court days once did, but the atmosphere is just as jubilant.