Although the Water Valley Watermelon Carnival discontinued in 1940 due to World War II, a Water Valley, Miss., educator named Joe Elliot revived the festival in the 1980s, and the annual event has re-occurred each year since. The carnival proved to be a success and ran for nine straight years until the outbreak of World War II brought the festivities to a roughly 40-year hiatus. “There was a market for watermelons in Chicago, and if they could draw attention and attract a buyer, they could put them on one of the trains still running and ship them up north,” Gurner adds.Įarly incarnations of the Watermelon Carnival included a parade, a formal ball and a pageant where residents named a carnival queen to serve as the face of the event. “There was plenty of cotton to be sure, but the area also had great melons, and they figured that if farmers could grow enough of them to ship in large quantities, it could make a difference.” “The idea of the carnival was to look for ways to make money and help the farmers by coming up with a needed product at the time,” Water Valley native and former photographer and journalist Jack Gurner says. Photo courtesy Water Valley Watermelon Carnival The original organizers of the Water Valley Watermelon Carnival founded the event in 1931 as a way to help farmers sell produce and to boost the northern Mississippi town’s local economy during the Great Depression. Ultimately, the answer they came up with was watermelons, and they organized the inaugural Water Valley Watermelon Carnival in August 1931. In the midst of the crisis, the then-editor of the local newspaper, the Yalobusha Democrat, rallied young businessmen from the Junior Chamber of Commerce to come up with a way to both raise locals’ morale and to find something of value the town could use to draw attention to itself and attract business.
The People’s Bank that served the local area closed its doors, and rail companies that had been key to the town’s prosperity since the 1800s began pulling out, leading unemployment to hit the town hard. When the Great Depression began gripping the United States in the early 1930s, the small town of Water Valley in northern Mississippi quickly felt its effects. Watermelons Preserved Water Valley’s Economy The two-day event will include a street dance, a fireworks display, a watermelon drop, watermelon eating and seed-spitting contests, a car show, a barbecue contest, food and craft vendors, a 3k run and walk, and more. This year’s Water Valley Watermelon Carnival will take place from Friday, Aug. The largest melon Vaughn ever managed to grow, which he presented during the 2018 Watermelon Carnival, weighed 202 pounds.ĭo you think our journalism is essential? Give today and support our work. He previously won the contest from 2017 to 2019 and came in second place in 2021.
Vaughn is currently preparing for his fifth consecutive year of entering the event’s largest-watermelon competition.
Vaughn, who worked as a railroad engineer for 40 years before retiring in 2002, makes these specific preparations for one particular purpose: creating loose and nutrient-rich soil perfect for supporting the roots of giant watermelons weighing several hundred pounds for the annual Water Valley Watermelon Carnival. After leaving the fish to rot in the soil for some time, Vaughn adds to the mix what he refers to as “gin trash,” which is the refuse left over after using a cotton gin to separate the actual cotton from the rest of the plant, as well as a generous amount of phosphate and potash.
Instead, he takes them out to a patch of farmland on his property and buries them in a specially prepared patch of loose, sandy soil. Water Valley native and retired railroad engineer Hal Vaughn uses his own signature soil-treatment methods to grow his giant watermelons, including the 202-pound one he submitted to the annual Water Valley Watermelon Carnival’s largest-watermelon competition in 2018, which he won. He, however, does not eat the shad or even use them as catfish bait as is a common practice among fishermen. Every year, Water Valley native Hal Vaughn makes the drive out to the Grenada Reservoir Spillway to spend the day fishing for shad to take home with him.