A Royal celebration
Village in Redstone marking 125th anniversary with Community Day
Each of the five streets in Royal has at least one family who can trace their time in the Fayette County patch town back to when it was founded, said Michael Cetera.
The small village in Redstone Township has long outlasted the Royal Mine and Coke Works it was built to serve, which closed in the 1940s. Also called Chestnut Ridge, it’s kept going as a tight-knit community that celebrates its 125th anniversary this year.
Saturday, the community and others will celebrate with the latest iteration of what has become an annual tradition, with Royal Community Days.
The all-day event at Royal Park is free to attend, said Cetera, president of Royal Youth Recreation, which helps organize the event. The park is located at 1 School St., Chestnut Ridge.
Starting at 1:30 p.m. and ending after sunset with a fireworks display, the day will bring an estimated 300 people — nearly twice Royal’s population — to the Pleasant View Pavilion.
“If you show up between 1:30 and 9 p.m., 1:30 and 10 p.m., you’re going to have a good time,” Cetera said.
Over the years, the festival’s grown, bringing back old favorites like the grease pole, a skinned tree covered in Crisco and dotted with dollar bills. For children who aren’t as adventurous, the ground below the pole is covered in piles of sawdust where they can find quarters or buried novelty items.
“In the past, we’ve had ice cream eating-contests, pie-eating contests, anything vintage and old that we can think of that would bring back the memories of the community name,” Cetera said.
A long-running horseshoe tournament is among the day’s highlights.
Where they once brought their own Slip n’ Slide, the organizers now rent five or six water slides for the day, to go with seven or eight bouncy houses. Kids can also get their faces painted.
A Chinese auction with hundreds of prizes closes at 7 p.m. The results will be announced at an intermission along with the winner of a 50/50 raffle.
People can come and eat without spending a dime, Cetera said. In addition to refreshments like shaved ice, there is a potluck that always provides quality food donated by residents and friends, Cetera said.
“We might get three cabbage and noodles, but at the end of the day, they all go,” he said. “People come, and they know they can get some good meals, provided beverages and drinks, and just a really good, wholesome time.”
The Community Days tradition dates back to the 1970s, when coach Luther Harrison and the Fayette Traveling Softball Team of Royal met at midseason to host a family event with 15-cent hot dogs, burlap sack races and other slices of Americana.
When Harris died, the festival entered a lull of several years. The Royal Youth Recreation nonprofit — itself a rejuvenated version of a ’70s tradition — re-formed the festival about 20 years ago with the help of Pleasant View Church.
The small group of volunteers was unable to coordinate last year’s festival after injuries left them without the manpower to put it together.
“This year we’re coming back twice as big and twice as excited with the enthusiasm from the kids waiting for this thing to happen,” he said.
Born and raised in Royal, Cetera has been around for 50 of those 125 years. Community Days, and the other events put on Royal Youth Recreation, help keep “that good, down-home patch life” alive for their neighbors, he said.
“Some of them might not even come out of their house for this, because it’s too many people coming for them, or they’ll come out more for our Christmas party – it’s a little more low-key,” Cetera said. “But they know it’s a celebration, they’re proud of where they live, and it’s all positive.”