Orange City Tulip Festival - Celebrating 70 Years

This May the Orange City Tulip Festival will be celebrating its 70^th year.  The festival originally began as an annual Tulip Show in 1933. It gained in popularity and size in 1934 and 1935. By 1936 the Tulip Show blossomed into a one-day celebration called the Tulip Festival.  The event grew and evolved and in 1937 the first Tulip Festival Queen was elected. Estimated attendance that year peaked at 3,500.

By 1939 the festival’s popularity enabled organizers to make the celebration a two day festival. This was also the first year of the night show. Estimated attendance was 12,000.

The festival continued in 1940 and 1941, although the celebrations couldn’t escape the unavoidable turmoil of World War II.  As the local newspaper described, “The festival activities will be dignified and tinged with sadness because of the destruction wrought by the German war machine.”

Deep in the throes of war, the Tulip Festival was canceled in 1942 and replaced with Victory Days. Victory Days continued to replace the festival in 1943 and 1944, but in 1945 and 1946 neither the Tulip Festival nor Victory Days were celebrated.

In the fall of 1946, with peace on the horizon, 50,000 new tulip bulbs were imported from Holland and planted in anticipation for the 1947 festival. The celebration was a pleasant reminder the war was over and special services were held to honor veterans.

With the war years behind, the festival continued to grow and change.  A third day was added to the festival in 1950. Throughout the 1950s the festival began to conform to the well-established pattern of previous years and became a fixture of Orange City’s culture.

Year after year, the Orange City Tulip Festival has grown and evolved. But most importantly, it has endured. It endured during the Great Depression, a time of unspeakable poverty when wooden shoes were too costly to buy. But true Dutchmen found a way . . . tracing wooden shoes onto cardboard, cutting them out and attaching on both sides their children’s shoes. It has endured through war. We hope it will flourish far into the future.

Throughout the last 70 years the festival has undoubtedly changed, however, the spirit of the festival remains the same every year; a celebration of not only our strong Dutch heritage but the heritage and culture of all, and, most importantly, the blessing of faith and community.

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