Butler County welcomes the return this weekend of Jeeps and Jeepers from far and wide for the seventh annual Bantam Jeep Heritage Festival.

We’re proud and pleased to host this annual homecoming ritual. Spain can keep that bull run thing. Ohio can have its buzzards in the spring. And the swallows will always return to California. We’re happy to keep the Jeep rolling into Butler County.

So what if our convergence is mechanical rather than animal? Like salmon headed upstream, the Jeeps and their owners will converge this weekend to the birthplace of the iconic general purpose vehicle designed to go anywhere — the replacement for the Army mule.

As hosts of the Jeep festival, it’s in our collective interest to keep the record straight — not only straight. But as complete as possible. we’re all denizen-docents of this historical site we call home.

It was in October 1940 that a Butler automaker, the American Bantam Car Co., got the contract to design a light reconnaissance vehicle for the U.S. Army and supplied 70 of them for the Army’s Quartermaster Technical Committee in 12 weeks.

A month later, the quartermaster and the National Advisory Commission contacted Bantam, Willys-Overland and Ford car companies, asking all three of them to produce 1,500 vehicles each, based on the Bantam design.

Bantam completed its 1,500 cars by May 1941, but the Army awarded future jeep contracts to Willys-Overland and Ford, a controversial move. Some claim it was because of Bantam’s financial straits, others say it was because the company’s bid was too high, even though Ford’s bid was almost identical. While Willys underbid the other two, it didn’t produce those first 1,500 vehicles as asked for by the Army, and it had design problems; specifically, Willys’ cars were too heavy.

Thousands of books, articles and documentary films have been made about the Jeep. Still, many details of its origins have remained shrouded by fragmentary, conflicting and incomplete evidence, conjecture, supposition or outright guessing.

This year we are grateful for the work of an automotive enthusiast from Alaska, William Spear, who took more than 15 years to research and write the definitive 400-page history of the birth of the Jeep in Butler. Spear’s book, “Warbaby” was published in 2016 and will be available for sale this weekend at the Jeep history exhibit.

According to the festival organizers, Spear’s new book “sets out the true story of how the Jeep came to be. The history is not only revealed in full, but emerges as one of the most interesting and exciting stories in automotive history, from beginning to end filled with dozens of compelling characters in dramatic, high risk situations.”

The history is fascinating, but it’s only one part of the Jeep lore. The rest of the story, of course, is what Jeep enthusiasts have made of their favorite vehicle. The Jeep of today and tomorrow is every bit as important to the fest as the Jeep of 75 years ago.

The festival’s highlight is Friday’s Jeep Invasion in downtown Butler, when more than 1,000 vehicles will be on exhibit along Main Street and adjoining streets. Main Street will close at 3 p.m. for the event, which officially runs from 6 to 10 p.m.

The focus moves to Cooper’s Lake for the remainder of the weekend, with events scheduled from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday and 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday. There will be exhibits, trail rides, obstacle and mud courses, demonstrations and vendors of all types — plenty for enthusiasts to enjoy whether or not they own a Jeep.

“It’s a Jeep thing” has become a global phenomenon. Butler always will be its ground zero.