Festival Success!

We've made it through the Harmar Days Festival, and our Chairman Larry Sloter on the festival did a recap with WTAP and what comes next. While our raffle and the majority of our other fundraising efforts focus on the bridge, we use part of our Harmar Days Festival proceeds to continue to improve our festival space and other properties.

The bridge is a multi-million, multiyear project, the turn span is the most historic aspect and this is one of the only bridges left in the United States that’s an iron bridge, it’s a railroad bridge that is still manually operated at its turn span. There is always work to do here in Harmar Village, so look for upgrades to our rail cars, festival space, park and the Post Office. Historic Harmar Bridge Company owns the Historic Harmar Post Office, the original post office from the 1860′s, we’d like to revamp that into museum space or our offices as we continue to improve our holdings in Historic Harmar Village.

We’re working on some grant writing right now. Hopefully we’ll have answers by the end of August beginning of September with regards to a couple of the largest grants that we’re working on. One of those grants, if awarded, could finance 60 to 70% of the bridge project. That grant is part of the Appalachian Community Grant Program, the people in charge of the grant must determine that the bridge project meets the grant qualifiers. In order to qualify, it must be a big project that will have a profound impact on the community. It’s a project that will provide better access to transportation as well as maintain a piece of MOV history.