For 21 years it has never rained on The Peach Festival parade in Middletown and Saturday will be no exception.
With a forecast calling for blue skies and a comfortable high temperature in the low eighties, organizers of Middletown’s marquee event say they could exceed last year’s attendance record.
In 2013, an estimated thirty thousand people swarmed Middletown in celebration of the fuzzy fruit.
The trademark First State crop was key to making Delaware the country’s top peach growing state in the 1800’s and festival chairman Brian Rickards, says peaches play an important role in Middletown’s history.
“What actually grew that town was peaches. There were many box cars each day that went out when the railroad went in and that’s what actually made that town boom and you can still see the Victorian homes there today,” said Rickards.
Many of the mansions east and west of Middletown have earned the nickname “peach mansions” as evidence of the fruit’s role in building the town.
Saturday’s Middletown Peach Festival features a parade, four stages of live entertainment, a classic car show and of course plenty of peach pie, peach ice cream and peach funnel cakes.