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Q: What do Lady Gaga, flea markets, co****le tournaments, the Youth Fair and Juniata County Fair, "Weird Al" Yankovic and Goose Day all have in common?
A: They are just some of 200+ event listings in our handy-dandy Spring/Summer Event & Recreation edition. Grab a copy FREE in today's paper or online here--->
https://issuu.com/lewistownsentinel/docs/summerevents2022
Thanks to Buffie, Jenny, and the whole Juniata River Valley Visitors Bureau team for their help in assembling the list and providing the beautiful fireworks cover photo!
Travel to the quaint town of Reedsville in Juniata River Valley Visitors Bureau, where you’ll discover a farm-to-table restaurant that’s been an area favorite since it first opened in 2015. Revival Kitchen was born out of the desire to create a dining experience centered on locally sourced ingredients carefully crafted using both classical and modern cooking methods.
We had a beautiful day yesterday as we honored Dr. Joseph T. Rothrock, with a tree planting ceremony in his hometown of McVeytown with our Juniata River Valley friends! Rothrock is known as the "Father of Forestry" and remains a powerful figure in the stewardship of Pennsylvania's forests 🌲
We were thrilled to honor him yesterday and kick off . We look forward to collaborating with the Juniata River Valley Visitors Bureau and The Happy Valley Adventure Bureau to expand this week-long celebration with many fun activities each April. Stay tuned!
Tomorrow is opening day!!!!
Come take a look at what we have and get yourself some flowers! They are growing fast and we need more elbow room. 😎
Let your friends know this is where you get you amazing plants😉.
7649 US Hwy 522 South
Mcveytown PA
Open 9-6.
Juniata River Valley Chamber of Commerce
Juniata River Valley Visitors Bureau
Tatyana Vdov
Nadya V Peachey
Have you driven past the new Big Valley billboard, a team project of Juniata River Valley Visitors Bureau and Visit Big Valley. We have a list of places to buy flowers listed on our website, but we know there are more! If you have a favorite location that isn’t on our list, please comment on this post.
We are back!!!!
We stopped to take a breath, say hi and share some news!
We will be opening for the season on Saturday April 23!
Monday-Saturday 9-6
We missed you!!!
Come see us at
7649 US Hwy 522 South
Mcveytown Pa 17051
( in Strodes on top of the hill by the golf cart place)
Let your friends know.
Nadya V Peachey Tatyana Vdov Juniata River Valley Chamber of Commerce Juniata River Valley Visitors Bureau
Dreaming of your next fishing adventure while relaxing at a charming cottage? Guests of The Cottage at Honey Creek in Pennsylvania can relax on the back deck watching nature come back to life in the spring , or go fly fishing in the backyard’s premier, Class A wild brown trout fishery. Juniata River Valley Visitors Bureau
JP. Edward's is a bar and grill located in Burnham, PA. just outside of Lewistown. They have a great menu that sports a wide variety of food that could work for virtually any occasion. On top of a fantastic menu they also have a well equipped bar with plenty of options for mixed drinks or beers (including some local craft brews). JP Edward's is the perfect combination of sports bar/ causal dining, giving you the fun vibes of a sports bar without the sensory overload while also having plenty of delicious appetizers and entrees to chose from. Their staff is very friendly and accommodating and the food came out in a very timely manner. It does tend to get busy and the parking lot can get a bit tight but that is a testament to the quality of service this restaurant provided. JP Edward's is certainly Pennsylventure approved!
JpEdwards Grill and Bar Juniata River Valley Visitors Bureau Burnham, Pennsylvania
A walk around Kish Park, Lewistown this morning. Bluebirds (female pictured), Tree Swallows, Great Blue Herons, Flickers, Goldfinches, Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers, and Red-winged Blackbirds. I saw a Bald Eagle fly over also.
Two additions to the Wild Geese: Flock Together public art project received their all-weather coats at Barnes Body Shop in Thompsontown and are getting ready to land in Juniata County (Buttonwood Campground Port Royal Speedway Speedway)! 🏕 🐦 🌭🏁 🐦 🏎 Thanks to both site sponsors and Juniata River Valley Visitors Bureau for co-sponsorship of the Campground and Speedway goose + tons of Wild Geese promotion! 🙌 🐦
Check out this itinerary for a trip to the Juniata River Valley Visitors Bureau!
More than 180 years ago, the song “The Blue Juniata” was written by Marion Dix Sullivan. Let’s get reacquainted with the story of the song’s creation and its protagonist, the far-famed Alfarata. This catchy tune is a unique claim to fame that we share with our Juniata River Valley neighbors in The Perry, Mifflin, and Huntingdon counties.
After the Juniata Division of the Pennsylvania Canal opened in 1832, many travelers were carried over its 127-mile stretch. One such traveler was Mrs. Marion Dix Sullivan, who was traveling with her three children from Massachusetts to Ohio to meet up with her husband sometime between 1835 and 1841. Her children fancied the canal as their favorite part of the long journey since the unique arrangements were quite unlike that of a railway car.
One night while they were all sleeping, their boat hit a rock. When they awoke the next morning, their cabin floor was flooded, forcing them to vacate the boat. They took up the only other available resource, an old rickety stagecoach, presumably to take them to another part of the canal to catch another boat. As they traveled along the mountain roads, any discomfort was overridden by the charm of the scenery on the journey.
Marion’s eventful travels through the Juniata River Valley, enchanted by her surroundings and the stories about the previous native inhabitants, inspired her to write “The Blue Juniata.” She probably couldn’t have imagined that her song would become so popular throughout the nation, that it made her the first American woman to write a commercially successful song.
Some sources cite the date the song was written as 1841. Some even give her husband credit for penning the lyrics, even though he was not with her during the journey. Semantics aside, in 1844 “The Blue Juniata” was officially published and copyrighted. The original arrangement was for voice and guitar, but soon after, a piano forte score was arranged by E.L. White. As early as July 1844, the song appeared in new music advertisements in Charleston, South Carolina and quickly spread to many other states. Over the next few years, the song grew in popularity as a parlor favorite in nearly every state and territory.
By 1850, other variations of “The Blue Juniata” were being composed and published. In 1856, a new wildly popular monthly publication called Harper’s Magazine included a lengthy 8-page article lauding the beauty of the Juniata River Valley and the charms of Marion’s song. For decades, newspapers across the nation would randomly print the song’s lyrics with no further explanation or context. The song’s fictitious native character named Alfarata (likely invented for the sake of rhyming) became the namesake of countless children, horses, boats, college mascots, and even locations. Not only is there a Mifflin County community named Alfarata, but it is also a city in Georgia.
But the song’s popularity is perhaps best captured in the following three instances:
• “The Blue Juniata” is listed in Mark Twain’s autobiography as one of the tunes he recalls hearing traveling minstrels sing.
• “The Blue Juniata” has been well-documented as a favorite song of both northern and southern soldiers during the Civil War. General George Pickett mentioned it in a letter to his wife in 1864. General William Sherman famously became enchanted with the song while encamped in Georgia. An Illinois regiment began singing the song when their train started up the Juniata on their way home.
• “The Blue Juniata” was said to be a favorite song of Charles “Pa” Ingalls, as documented in Chapter 18 of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House on the Prairie. Her parents sang the song as a lullaby, but Ingalls recalled being more troubled than lulled by the lyrics. “Where did the voice of Alfarata go, Ma?” Her concern for the actions taken against Native Americans only deepened before she was silenced. Ingalls later discovered that “Pa” scribbled the lyrics in a book in 1860, the year he and “Ma” were married.
In 1937, two years after Ingalls’ book was published, “The Blue Juniata” was recorded by Roy Rogers (a.k.a. Leonard Slye) with his band the Early Sons of the Pioneers. In 2012 the song was recorded by the band Riders in the Sky, a band featured in Toy Story 2.
The Juniata River, our county’s namesake, lives on in song. There have been poems published in response to it. It is used in academic settings to teach lessons in both music and history. Yet, there are some who have not read the lyrics or listened to the song. Let’s remedy that. Listen to this recording and read the lyrics in the comments. Then tell your children, family, friends, and neighbors about Alfarata’s love and loss on the waters of the Blue Juniata!
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