King Turkey Days:
68 Years of Turkey
Tomfoolery
As recently as 1871 Old Lady Leary
still was keeping a cow in the city of Chicago. As the story goes, one
dark night when the kids were all in bed Old Lady Leary took a lantern
to her shed - Chicago burns.
In the 1870s, the Gay ‘90s, the turn of
the century years, those were years Americans raised their own chickens,
ducks and turkeys on their farmyards. Or they made the trip over the
river and through the woods to Grandmother’s house. Or they kept a small
poultry flock behind their own houses, even in the great cities.
By the 1920s urban Americans were
looking for fresh dressed chickens in their markets. An industry emerged
in the area about Worthington, where chickens were grown in small flocks
but in great numbers. Three produce plants (so they were called) emerged: E.O. Olson’s Worthmore Creamery & Producer, J.C. Boote’s Hatchery
and Produce, and Farmers Produce. Jobs were created for women; chickens were processed year
around, loaded into refrigerated rail cars and shipped to Chicago and
Easter markets.
Seasonally - Thanksgiving time, also at
Christmas - there came to be a demand for fresh-dressed turkeys as well.
But there never were turkeys in great numbers, as there were chickens.
Farmers raised only a turkey or two or six. So it came to be: The
produce houses pressed selected farmers to begin raising turkeys on a
grand scale - poultry was raised in numbers greater than anyone ever
before had seen. Tens of thousands of turkeys were strutted through the
days of summer and early autumn.
The sight was awesome.
Worthington merchants were casting
about for a theme for a community celebration which would:
- generate publicity for the
community;
- focus the attention of residents
(customers) from a wide area on Worthington, and;
- generate goodwill among the
established clientele. (Say, "Thanks for doing business with us!")
The office of the Chamber of Commerce,
with its first full time professional manager, suggested capitalizing on
the region’s most remarkable feature: the great flocks of turkeys.
Merchants like the suggestion. E.O. Olson (of the produce plant), who
had been traveling in the South, told of a turkey festival he had seen
at Cuero, Texas, at which a flock of live turkeys led a community
parade. An autumn celebration of turkeys was organized, beginning with a
free early morning pancake feast and including a parade. Barrels of
turkey tail feathers were set out at street-side all through the
downtown business district for souvenirs. Merchants dressed in denim
overalls and plaid shirts for a week - a familiar garb of their farmer
customers.
The year was 1939. Everything went
right, including the weather. An October day with a prevailing high
which left a cloudless blue sky for a thousand miles. The novelty of the
event attracted the attention of a host of newspapers and radio
stations. Politicians were quick to see an opportunity for meeting
country folk.
What Happened Next
1940 was a repeat of 1939, nearly.
There was even more media coverage. Minnesota’s Boy Wonder Governor,
Harold Stassen, was invited to be the featured speaker. The emerging
festival caught the attention of Life magazine. Gay Hower, owner of
Worthington’s two movie theaters, arranged to bring newsreel cameramen
to town - Worthington’s Turkey Day festival was reflected from big
silver screens around the world.
Before the year was ended there was
disaster, however. November 11 (Armistice Day) brought one of the
fiercest winter storms in the history of the region. The fat tom turkeys
on the ranges, standing in line nearly for Thanksgiving shipment,
perished by the tens of thousands in a relentless gush of Arctic air,
wind, snow and ice.
Before Worthington had a chance for a
third turkey festival its turkey industry was nearly destroyed.
The Show Must Go On
Although turkeys continued to be raised
in the area, the flocks were rather far between. But turkeys continued
to be processed at Worthington; it was said there was no place on earth
where more turkeys were processed each year. There was a growing demand
for turkey poults and for turkey eggs; it was said there was no place on
earth where more turkeys were hatched each year. And turkeys continued
to be celebrated. No one, not the news media, not the politicians, not
the residents of the World’s Turkey Capital, wanted the celebration to
be forgotten or diminished. There was no place on earth where turkeys
were celebrated as they were at Worthington - dozens of marching bands,
scores of beauty queens, sparkling floats and a growing roster of some
of the most illustrious American political figures of the 20th Century.
North Star vs. Lone Star
In 1972, thirty-four years after E.O.
Olson made his stop at Cuero, Texas, Worthington received a report that
the Texas city had staged a live turkey race - a turkey trot - as part
of its turkey celebration. The Worthington Turkey Day committee was
nudged to send a challenge to Texas. The next year, 1973, Cuero sent a
turkey and a delegation of handlers to Worthington, to be pitted against
a Worthington bird in what was billed as the Great Gobbler Gallop on
Worthington’s 10th Street. The Worthington turkey then, and in all years
to follow, was named Paycheck (nothing goes faster than a paycheck). The
Texas bird was Ruby Begonia.
The Gobbler Gallop has always been in
two laps against the clock, one lap on Worthington’s main street and a
second lap on Cuero’s main street. The bird with the best combined times
is the winner each year.
The race of the North Star and the Lone
Star turkeys has been a feature of the turkey celebrations both at
Worthington and at Cuero for three decades. Each year the Texans send a
delegation to Worthington’s Turkey Day and Worthington sends a
delegation to Texas.
Traditions
Among Turkey Day Traditions none has
proved more enduring than the pancake breakfast. At every celebration
since the first, Worthington has hosted all who choose to partake at a
Turkey Day breakfast of juice, coffee, pancakes and sausage. The early
morning repasts are popular. There is often a line of residents waiting
to take their turn.
When Life magazine still was a
weekly American institution it focused more than once on the Turkey Day
celebration. A Life photo sequence of Estes Kefauver being given
a live bird which nearly got away earned the Tennessee senator some of
his best national coverage and comment. This was in the era when
newsreel cameras still were sent to Worthington to report on Turkey Day
for movie audiences.
In the decades since its inception
Turkey Day has been reported on by newspapers, wire services, television
and radio networks, in addition to magazines. The Great Gobbler Gallop
has been featured in Sports Illustrated and Turkey Day politics
have been reported on both in Time and Newsweek. The
celebration of turkeys also has earned international media attention. It
has been reported on in European and Japanese publications.
