Thousands visit Zelie for Horse Trading Days
ZELIENOPLE — Thousands of area residents packed Zelienople this week for the borough's 55th Horse Trading Days.
Booths by local businesses and organizations lined the street and featured their latest offerings, while horse drawn carriages ferried attendees across town.
Festival organizer Matthew Edwards said Friday that the event is a success.
“We've had a lot of vendors commenting they've had some of their busiest days in quite a while,” he said. “So that's exciting to hear that we have a lot of people walking through town.”While organizers have no way to know for sure how many people attend the festival, Edwards said past organizers estimated around 40,000 were in attendance — and while they can't confirm those numbers, it's certainly in the tens of thousands.“Just the traffic alone is good for the community,” he said. “This festival started a long time ago as a trade festival to benefit the businesses in town, and that's really what we want our goal to get back to, is for economic growth in Zelienople.”In addition to customers and patrons to local businesses and organizations, the festival also serves as a good way to introduce people to the borough.
Adam Readout and his family came to the festival for the first time, after moving to Connoquenessing from Texas.“It's a warm day it's a lot of fun. It's a nice small town, a nice small community. We're new to the area so we're checking things out,” he said. “This is nice. Just hanging out with the family, taking the girls around, getting some snow cones, stuffed animals and anything else we find.”There's a lot that people don't know about Zelienople, Edwards said, and the festival is a way to get the word out about the latest offerings.“It's a really good opportunity to bring people who don't live in Zelienople into town to see what we have to offer, because there is a lot here that people don't even realize,” Edwards said. “A lot of unique restaurants, a couple breweries, things like that ... some really cool shops including some brand new ones right down the street. Once again people just don't know we're here and this is a great opportunity to bring tens of thousands of people to town to show them, 'Hey, there's a reason for you to come here, not just for Horse Trading Days.'”He said he hopes to see the festival continues to benefit the business community. The festival continues through Saturday, (July 21).
