Danforth to celebrate ‘Happy Days’

    DANFORTH, Maine — Festivals happen in every community throughout the summer, so it takes something, or someone, special to set one town’s celebration apart from others.
    For Danforth, that someone is April Doane. Organizer of the Danforth Summerfest for the past two summers, Doane has helped revitalize a festival that was all but dead until 2009 when Doane helped resurrect the annual event with Jen Gillman.
This year’s festival runs Friday, July 27-Sunday, July 29 and features a number of new events. A “Movie in the Park” night has been added with the purchase of a screen and projector to recreate the feel of an old drive-in movie in the town park. In the event of rain, the movie will be shown inside the town hall.
Other new events this year include a chili cookoff; 3-on-3 basketball, volleyball and horseshoe tourneys; disc ball piñatas; a giant bowling ball contest; and sock hop.
Coming up with interesting themes for the celebration was a wrinkle Doane added three years ago. Two years ago, the theme was “Old-Time Memories,” featuring items from the pioneer days of covered wagons. Last year, it was a Hawaiian Luau with grass skirts and coconut bras.
The year, expect to see a lot of leather jackets and poodle skirts as the theme will be the 1950s “greaser “era, drawing heavily upon the movie “Grease” and the television show “Happy Days.”
“We try to come up with different things each year,” Doane said. “A lot of people come and hang out for the whole day, so we try to spread things out as much as possible.”
Eastern Maine Electric Company is holding its annual meeting on Saturday, July 28 at East Grand High School. To mark the event, the company will have a barbecue luncheon at the school grounds, complete with children’s games and clowns.
While she is uncertain if she will continue with Summerfest beyond this year, Doane said there has been some thought given to future themes.
“A lot of people have suggested we could do a Halloween theme,” she said. “I know in years past they did a Christmas theme. They could also do a sports theme, but I think I would like to just sit back and enjoy it.”
According to the town’s website, Danforth “got its name from Thomas Danforth who was Deputy Governor of Massachusetts from 1679-86. The first permanent settler in Danforth was Parker Tewksbury of Cornville, Maine. It is known that he was settled on land in 1830, but may have been as early as 1829. Even though lumbermen had visited the area in previous years, there is no question that Tewksbury’s log cabin, built on a site which later became known as the Morse farm, was the first permanent settlement in Danforth.”
Danforth was incorporated as a town March 17, 1860 by an act of legislation. The census of 1860, the time of Danforth’s incorporation, reported the population to be 280, and even after incorporation, the population only increased slightly with just an increase of 33 by the end of 1870. The population as of the 2000 census was 629.