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This space is reserved for announcing events that are of interest to the community. If you know of an event that should be announced, send an email and we'll include it here. Because this is a new page, we're starting with a single announcement--the annual Pecan Festival.
The pecan festival in beautiful downtown Alto
Any place with a five-digit zip code seems to have some sort of annual festival these days to attract tourists. In some places, there are festivals for every season and every occasion. Well, that's simply not the case for Alto's annual pecan festival. The official name is the "Alto Annual Pecan Festival," but we opt to just call it the pecan festival because that's exactly what it is. We have great pecan trees, and we have the festival so that the buyers and sellers can be in the same place at the same time. Our pecan festival isn't patterned after any sort of new, glitzy concept, but rather a plain, old-fashioned market place--nothing more.
In years past, before the advent of irrigation and range farming, Alto turned out bumper crops of cotton and tomatoes. Timber, cotton and tomatoes drove the economy. These days, the cotton and tomatoes have moved to flatter ground where irrigation is a necessity and high tech crop-tending and harvesting equipment have all but replaced the human element in farming. In our community, oil and gas and cattle and chickens have just about replaced the field crops, but our trees still reign.
Yes, our trees are ever present, and we have many, many sorts. From tall, straight majestic pines, to centuries old oaks, to the bearers of fruit and nuts, they're very much a part of our culture, our lives, and our community's natural beauty. For a long, long time, our people have taken to the woods on the first weekend in November to participate in what is certainly for our town's most celebrated ritual--the opening of deer season. On that weekend, the streets are full of people, and a significant number are visitors.
So... having established the history of the economics of our land and resources, we'll segue into the particulars of the pecan festival. If our fair community wanted a gimmick to attract visitors and pick their pockets, we'd throw a town party, complete with the full complement of advertising, fanfare and, of course, a catchy, but meaningless name like the Tadpole, Sand Storm or Road Lizard Festival. Instead, we've opted for a much more pragmatic approach to celebrate our connection to our trees and forests and the harvesting of our native flora and fauna. We have set aside the first weekend in November of each year as the date when we bring our pecans into town and sell them to the public. On a weekend when our population is somewhat inflated by visitors in pursuit of the wilderness sport, it just makes sense for us to offer up our pecans
This space is reserved for announcing events that are of interest to the community. If you know of an event that should be announced, send an email and we'll include it here. Because this is a new page, we're starting with a single announcement--the annual Pecan Festival.
The pecan festival in beautiful downtown Alto
Any place with a five-digit zip code seems to have some sort of annual festival these days to attract tourists. In some places, there are festivals for every season and every occasion. Well, that's simply not the case for Alto's annual pecan festival. The official name is the "Alto Annual Pecan Festival," but we opt to just call it the pecan festival because that's exactly what it is. We have great pecan trees, and we have the festival so that the buyers and sellers can be in the same place at the same time. Our pecan festival isn't patterned after any sort of new, glitzy concept, but rather a plain, old-fashioned market place--nothing more.
In years past, before the advent of irrigation and range farming, Alto turned out bumper crops of cotton and tomatoes. Timber, cotton and tomatoes drove the economy. These days, the cotton and tomatoes have moved to flatter ground where irrigation is a necessity and high tech crop-tending and harvesting equipment have all but replaced the human element in farming. In our community, oil and gas and cattle and chickens have just about replaced the field crops, but our trees still reign.
Yes, our trees are ever present, and we have many, many sorts. From tall, straight majestic pines, to centuries old oaks, to the bearers of fruit and nuts, they're very much a part of our culture, our lives, and our community's natural beauty. For a long, long time, our people have taken to the woods on the first weekend in November to participate in what is certainly for our town's most celebrated ritual--the opening of deer season. On that weekend, the streets are full of people, and a significant number are visitors.
So... having established the history of the economics of our land and resources, we'll segue into the particulars of the pecan festival. If our fair community wanted a gimmick to attract visitors and pick their pockets, we'd throw a town party, complete with the full complement of advertising, fanfare and, of course, a catchy, but meaningless name like the Tadpole, Sand Storm or Road Lizard Festival. Instead, we've opted for a much more pragmatic approach to celebrate our connection to our trees and forests and the harvesting of our native flora and fauna. We have set aside the first weekend in November of each year as the date when we bring our pecans into town and sell them to the public. On a weekend when our population is somewhat inflated by visitors in pursuit of the wilderness sport, it just makes sense for us to offer up our pecans
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