Corsicana invites you into their booming downtown and onto the porches of their historic Carriage District this weekend with their Inaugural Porchfest and Crafternoon. You may have heard of the Porchfest craze sweeping the nation — musicians playing on grand porches of neighborhood homes for a family-friendly afternoon of socializing and entertainment.
Corsicana’s adding its own small-town flair with a variety of libations offered on each porch and a curated selection of local food demonstrations, wine sampling, and how-to home crafts such as pickling, preserving, and canning, tending backyard chickens, proper rose bush pruning, lavender infusions, furniture rehabs with chalk paint, insider antiquing, and more sprinkled throughout the neighborhood between the homes.
Nationally known and locally grown musicians will play on two stages throughout the event. Local food trucks will also be in attendance, and the library will host activities for the kiddos.
Set in Corsicana’s historic Carriage District, it’s an architectural field day of turn-of-the-century Victorian and Queen Anne homes with wrap-around porches and manicured flowerbeds. The tree-lined streets of 3rd Avenue will take you back to the late 1800s when the discovery of oil turned this cotton farming town into a bustling center of commerce.
The event is, of course, underwritten by many of Corsicana’s oldest companies: Oil City Iron Works (Est. 1866), Collin Street Bakery (Est. 1896), Clifford Brown III, Orkin Pest Control, Across the Street Diner & Bistro by Andres, Walker Realty, Kinsloe House, Corsicana Main Street and HEB. This town really supports its own.
If you’re an early riser you can start your Corsicana adventure with coffee from Mita’s Coffee Lab downtown before indulging in Mimosas at the Market beginning at 10 a.m. Complimentary mimosas will be flowing from eager shop owners until 1 p.m. – when Porchfest begins.
You’ll want to plan time to explore. And lunch. There are 18 new shops and restaurants that have opened downtown over the last year – from the cutest little landscaping shop in a historic gas station to boutiques, home goods, antiques, even a coffee shop in a boutique. You have to go into the Beaton Meat Market then check out the new Pocket Market also on Beaton Street, a micro farmers market with items from the larger Navarro County Farmers Market south of town. Did I mention this is still very much a farming community? Think goat farms, organically grown veggies and pasture-raised beef. All local.
And the downtown… it’s like Downtown McKinney only bigger. The entire seven blocks on Beaton Street are two-story, turn-of-the-century brick buildings, with two parallel streets with single-story shops. It’s not as ‘polished’ as McKinney. There are old neighborhood service shops like car repair shops, a copy & print shop, law firms and insurance agencies of course. There is an amazing artist residency though. And about 60 residents live downtown.
There are also TWO theaters AND an Opry. Unfortunately, there aren’t any big shows playing this weekend (but then, you might have to stay overnight at an adorable B&B … Wait — there aren’t any yet. Have you ever wanted to run a boutique B&B? There are lots of adorable houses here, you know). Next weekend the Warehouse Living Arts Center begins their summer performance AND the Opry has a benefit concert fundraiser if you’re craving the small town vibe again.
Whether you head to Corsicana Saturday to just sip your libation in an Adirondack under the century-old trees or to get your fruitcake fix and learn to prune and can, you’re sure to enjoy the slow pace of this lovely small town and its “open porches” vibe.
Details:
This Saturday, June 9
Mimosas at the Market
Downtown Corsicana
10 a.m. — 1 p.m.
Porchfest & Crafternoon
3rd Avenue at 21st Street
1 p.m. — 5 p.m.
