KENT COUNTY, MI - It’s beginning to feel like fall, so it’s time for the annual Red Flannel Festival. Michigan’s 15th oldest festival returns this weekend. Festivities get a head start in Cedar Springs on Friday, Oct.
4 with a community-wide carnival on Ash and Beech Streets at 5 p.m., followed by a first responders parade at 8:30 p.
m. on Main Street. On Saturday, it’s officially Red Flannel Day, beginning with the Flag Raising Ceremony at Cedar Springs High School’s Red Hawk Stadium.
The first Red Flannel Day was held on Nov. 11, 1939. It all began three years prior amid “the worst winter in years,” according to the event website.
At the time, a New York feature writer wrote there were no red flannels in the nation to keep the old-fashioned winter from biting. The Cedar Springs Clipper, the local newspaper, had something to say in response, boasting, “Just because Sak’s Fifth Avenue does not carry red flannels, it doesn’t follow that no one in the country does. CEDAR SPRINGS’ merchants have red flannels!” Seeing the possibility of at least a few years of publicity because of the small town’s famous “drop-seat” long johns and lumbering history, Cedar Springs coined “Red Flannel Day” the last weekend in September and the first weekend in October over eight decades ago.
Keep scrolling for event highlights to look forward to this weekend. Friday, Oct. 4 Saturday, Oct.
5 (Red Flannel Day) See the full schedule and 2024 Red Flannel Festival map at.