Arts & Entertainment
Cultural activities are fostered by such organizations as the Arts Council of Chester County; the Chester Little Theater; the Chester County Library, the Chester Historical Society; and local historical and civic groups.
Annual festivals draw large numbers of visitors both locally and from out of state. The Flopeye Fish Festival is held each Memorial Day weekend in Great Falls. Activities at the event include arts and crafts fairs, a variety of musical entertainment, car shows, carnival rides and games, and a wide range of choice food items.
The City of Chester serves host each year for the Chester Downtown Association's HILLarity Festival The multi-cultural event features a wide variety of entertainment, crafts and food in Historic Downtown Chester.
Another popular and growing event is the annual Lilly Festival. The rare Rocky Shoals Spider Lilly is found in only a handful of places in the world. The beautiful lilies spring to life each May in the Catawba River. The celebration takes place at the Landsford Canal State Park near Richburg.
The Chester County Historical Museum, which opened in 1960, contains many notable collections including the Claude E. Gatlin Indian Collection. This amazing collection contains more than 30,000 projectile points. The Museum also houses pictures of four signers of the South Carolina Ordinance of Secession which helped lead to the Civil War. There is also a copy of the Ordinance donated by the family of one of the signers. Several Civil War battle flags are also on display as are thousands of photographs and negatives from the collection of Henry Orion Nichols taken between 1917-1990.
Regional Arts and Cultural Activities
Residents in Chester County have access to a myriad of artistic and cultural offerings. The region is home to nationally recognized museums, symphony, opera, theater & dance companies as well as a number of historic sites, living history exhibits and annual community festivals. Locally, the Chester County Historical Society is an active player in promoting and maintaining Chester County's rich and colorful history. Just a walk through downtown Chester takes one back to a time when life was a bit slower, perhaps a bit more friendly and certainly less expensive. The downtown's beauty and architectural heritage has been expertly maintained making it one of loveliest small towns in the entire South.
But the County's other towns, including Great Falls, Richburg and Lowrys offer a special blend of charm unique to each. Great Falls is home to one of the oldest hydroelectric dams in the country and is where Duke Energy Corporation was born. Today, the river serves the area as a wonderful recreational area, perfect for boating, fishing, picnicking, and camping.
In Charlotte, the beautiful uptown North Carolina Blumenthal Performing Arts Center is host to several Broadway plays each year. Aside from the main arts center, several excellent local theater companies put on a wide variety of productions throughout the year. The City of Charlotte is home to a growing number of artists and galleries. A popular event is "Gallery Crawl" which takes place the first Friday evening of each month in the artist’s community of North Davidson Street in downtown Charlotte.
In addition to activities at the Blumental Performing Arts Center, the region is home to the Mint Museum of Art, Discovery Place Museum, the Museum of York County, the Charlotte Repertory Theater, the North Carolina Dance Center, the Catawba Indian Cultural Center, the living history exhibit at Historic Brattonsville, the Chester County Historical Society Museum, and a host of community festivals. Statewide, the annual Spoleto Festival in Charleston, Freedom Weekend Aloft in the Upstate and the Carolina Cup horseracing events in Camden are just two of the dozens of community events that attract literally hundreds of thousands of spectators each year. For a complete listing of all the artistic, cultural and entertainment opportunities in Charlotte, visit the Charlotte Convention and Visitors Bureau.
