MORGANTOWN, PA – Historic Joanna Furnace begins its celebration of the fall harvest season on Saturday, October 13. For over thirty years, the ever-popular Hay Creek Apple Festival has been a family tradition. Visitors of all ages are drawn to those great traditional foods, seasonal hands-on crafts for kids, the historic iron-making complex, flea market and much more. The crisp fall air and the crackle of leaves underfoot set the mood for this traditional tribute to the fall season and the delicious culinary delights based on the lowly apple.

With its savory variety of apple foods and apple specialties the Hay Creek Apple Festival is one of the best places in the region to experience the many traditional ways apples can be prepared. Visitors can savor a variety of apple foods and apple specialties, eating on site or taking the food home. The event day, will open with the traditional Hay Creek Apple Pancake Breakfast served from 7 a.m. to 11 a.m. The traditional Apple Festival menu includes such favorites as apple fritters and warmed spiced apples with vanilla ice cream, apple dumplings, apple pies, apple crisp, schnitz-un-knepp, apple sausage sandwiches, candy apples, hot mulled cider and fresh pressed cider. Other menu items include Homemade Kettle Soup (chicken corn, beef vegetable, ham & bean), chicken potpie, hamburgers and hot dogs, French fries, soda, water and coffee.

In early Joanna Furnace days, apples were an important food source all year long. Many varieties could keep for months. Children of the early families had the important job of checking the apples stored in barrels in the root cellar, making sure that “one bad apple” did not “spoil the bunch”.