COLUMBIANA, Ohio – The Shaker Woods Festival draws thousands of guests from across the country to Columbiana.
Yet Lana Wilt, the event’s organizer, still gets nervous waiting for the first people to arrive each year. She remembers when visitors and vendors came from only about 20 miles away.
“You hold your breath on opening day, hoping that you see cars starting to come up the driveway,” Wilt says. “It’s crazy. … It’s fun to open those gates on the first opening day.”
The wooded festival area always gets packed, even in years when the weather does not cooperate – or when the Covid pandemic gripped the world.
And people coming to Shaker Woods bring business to local hotels, restaurants, breweries and shops.
The name Shaker Woods was derived from the 18th-century Shaker villages in New England, which Wilt’s mother, Sue Ferguson, loved to visit. The Shaker lifestyle emphasized the importance of craftsmen who worked with their hands.
“Their motto was ‘Hands to work, hearts to God,’” Wilt says. “So hencewise, everything that you find at Shaker Woods has to be handmade.”
Furniture makers, candle makers, blacksmiths and potters are intermixed with metal and wooden art makers, nature-inspired crafters, leather workers, soap makers, jewelry makers and home decor producers.
The woods and the trails with them fill up with the sounds of music and the smells created by a variety of foods and treats.
Wilt says the festival, which will celebrate 45 years this summer, has grown bigger than her mother would have ever expected.
“I don’t think she would have ever imagined or ever dreamed,” says Wilt, who remembers a lot of tears in the early years. “They both worked hard, extremely hard.”
Humble Beginnings
Shaker Woods had humble beginnings.
In the early 1980s, Sue and Sam Feguson, the owners of Ferguson’s Farm Market, held an Apple Butter Festival on the edge of their farm, where they grew corn and strawberries. The three-day event included four or five crafters and some entertainment.
“It was crazy,” Wilt says. “They had rain, they had sleet and they had sunshine in those three days and they were busy all three days.”
Ken McGaffic was involved. He handled the advertising for the Ferguson’s Farm Market and remembers the apple-themed festival, complete with apple butter and an apple baking contest. And traffic was backed up on state Route 7 for a mile in both directions. It moved into the woods the following year.
When they started Shaker Woods, the price to get in was $1.50 and there were 52 crafters. Sam Ferguson cleared the woods in sections over a three-year period, creating pathways initially made of wood chips.
After the first five years, Ferguson brought in 152 eight-ton truck loads of gravel to cover the paths. Each year at least 15 to 20 more tons are brought in to spruce them up.
The fest attracted hundreds of people for the first five years, but then attendance took off, Wilt says. They put in a stage after the fifth year and two more after the eighth year.
When they got to around 200 crafters, the event “just blew up,” which Wilt attributes to heavy advertising and recognition from National Geographic, followed by recognition from Travelocity.
Going Strong
When her mother’s health no longer allowed her to continue, Wilt, who had been working with the team for about a decade, bought the event.
“It was very tough,” Wilt says of the transition. “But I had two great teachers. They taught me everything.”
Wilt took on the roles of both the office work and taking care of the grounds, where vendors house their products in small buildings and sheds. As soon as the weather allows, she meticulously rakes the roadways through the woods and more than 10 acres of grounds.
Her husband takes time off from work several days in the summer to help her finish the heavy lifting of getting the grounds ready for the annual event.
“It’s my passion and I think that’s just what keeps us going strong,” says Wilt, noting there are 232 crafters at this point and more continue to ask for space. The festival added a small section of 12 crafters two years ago.
Because vendors build and own their structures in the woods and do not want to give them up, it is hard to add new ones. When structures do become available, Wilt shows them to newly jurored crafters. There will be 30 new vendors this year. She began jurying new artists in January and everything was filled by the end of February.
Wilt believes several things set Shaker Woods apart from other shows.
“No. 1, we have great entertainment,” Wilt says. “We have great food. Most of the food is still cooked over open fires.”
Finally, Wilt says they ensure the crafters continue to make everything, wear period costumes and demonstrate their craftsmanship to visitors.
“You never let that go by the wayside,” Wilt says. “It’s just an overall experience.”
Crafters come from all over the country. A maker of handmade cuckoo clocks even came in from Germany one year.
Wilt credits Sunshine Artists, a publication that rates shows across the country, with helping Shaker Woods draw the finest crafters and artisans.
“They look at the ratings and I never, honestly and truly, have had a problem with filling our spots,” Wilt says.
More of a challenge is making sure vendors with similar items are not near each other and that there are a variety of vendors and items to purchase at many different price points.
“I try to make sure we have something to offer everyone,” Wilt says.
In addition to the vendor buildings, Shaker Woods has a church on the grounds where services are held, and a schoolhouse where children can do make-and-take crafts. A new church Wilt is working on this year will allow for weddings to take place in the
woods.
“The whole atmosphere, it’s magical,” Wilt says. “I believe that’s the word for it. And I have been truly blessed by my parents.”
Entertainers
Wilt passes those blessings on, holding a huge corn roast for the crafters and their families each year.
“I’ve always said we wouldn’t be here if they weren’t here and we appreciate every single one of them, along with our concessionaires and entertainment that we bring in,” Wilt says.
Country performer Darryl Gatlin has been performing there since the launch of the festival. Starting as a teenager when he performed with his brother, he now continues to do so with his wife, Andrea.
Entertainers also often contact her in hopes of getting a spot on one of the stages during Shaker Woods, according to Wilt, who says she likes to have something for everyone and keep it family oriented.
Celebrating 45 years this year, Wilt hopes to carry on her family’s event and legacy for as long as possible. She’s proud that Shaker Woods gives back to the community and has raised more than $200,000 for families with illnesses, donated to the local food pantries and was able to provide scholarships.
The crowds grew over the years from hundreds to thousands and Wilt notes there are groups who come every year and even wear shirts saying how many years they’ve been coming.
“To have repeat customers come back year after year,” Wilt says. “I don’t call them customers. I call them our guests and I call them family, actually.”
Antiques and Christmas
Shaker Woods takes place during the second, third and fourth weekend of August, and it’s not the only event on the property.
It is followed by the Antiques in the Woods Vintage Too festival, which takes place the weekend after Labor Day. Christmas in the Woods takes place the second and third weekend in October.
At one point, Wilt ran Antiques in the Woods too, but realized antiques were not her forte, so three years ago her friends, Michele Monstrola and Rege White, took over that show.
Monstrola says the antiques festival filled 80 booths in her first year, and 100 booths last year. This year, she’s anticipating 125 high quality vendors.
“We are honored to be able to have taken over the show and with us being [antiques] dealers ourselves, we really put our heart and soul into it,” Monstrola says. She and her team help get the woods ready each summer, raking, pulling weeds and even grinding stumps.
“I just love being up in those woods,” Monstrola says. “It’s just a sense of solitude in a way. It’s just peaceful… What Lana does with those woods to get ready for the show is just incredible.”
Christmas in the Woods has been bringing holiday spirit to Shaker Woods for more than 30 years, according to McGaffic.
It gets visitors in the holiday spirit with its 235 decorated craft booths, 20 food booths and three stages of entertainment.
The event brings vendors from throughout the country and visitors from more than 30 states. Many fly in each year because the festival has become a tradition in their lives, McGaffic says.
Last year, they brought in two actors from the movie “A Christmas Story” – Zack Ward, who played the bully, Scut Farcus; and Scott Schwartz, who played Flick, the student whose tongue got stuck to the flagpole.
“God gave us an idea and it worked,” McGaffic says.
Pictured at top: Lana Wilt carries on the Shaker Woods tradition.
