Fayetteville, WV (WOAY) – Bridge Day lasts just six hours on Saturday, but getting ready for it takes months.
Tens of thousands of people will fill about 1.5 miles of Route 19, from Keller Avenue on the south side of the New River Gorge Bridge to Fayette Mine Road on the north. The Bridge Day Commission is tasked with organizing and carrying out everything that happens there.
“Just working on lists and lists and remembering what we didn’t do last year that we could do this year. Editing a bunch of documents, like thousands of pages worth of paper that go through just to make sure that we’ve planned everything and have everything in order,” said PJ Stevenson, a captain with the Bridge Day Commission.
Stevenson said 170 vendors will set up along the route. Volunteers gather them in parking lots around Fayetteville early Saturday morning, then send them out in order.
“We start a roll out as soon as the bridge closes. And we’re just putting people out, hoping everybody stays in line. There’s probably four of us that stand in a line and count and sort and point and poke and hope that it all works out,” Stevenson said.
Wendy Scott, owner of Holler Nuts Boiled Peanuts, will be in that line Saturday morning for her third Bridge Day as a vendor.
“I have to clean the peanuts and get them completely free of dirt before I actually start boiling them and adding ingredients … Last month, I made sure I had enough peanuts and enough ingredients and enough propane and enough containers so that I didn’t come up on this week and have to order something because it’s not going to get here in time,” Scott said. “You have to be prepared and not wait until the last minute because you’ll be left with nothing on Bridge Day,” she said.
Scott said the extra prep is well worth the time for Bridge Day.
“We sold over 200 pounds of peanuts in that amount of time and on a regular vendor day for a festival, we sell maybe 25 pounds of peanuts … So it’s definitely worth it to be a vendor,” she said.
Stevenson said that after months of preparation, it all falls into place one way or another.
“I feel like at 11:00 in the morning when everybody’s in place and everything’s going, it’s kind of time to celebrate at that point in time,” she said.
With Saturday approaching, the festival, and the celebration of pulling it off, is right around the corner.
