Strawberry Festival

On Father’s Day the Silverton Rotary serves strawberry shortcake in Coolidge-McClaine City Park from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Each serving is a biscuit with ice cream and strawberries, at $8 for one or $15 for two. Children two and younger and anyone 80 or older eat free. The park lies beside Silver Creek and is planted with trees for summer shade. A covered pavilion with a kitchen stands near the back, and eight picnic sections are spread over the grounds, some against a shaded hillside and some along the creek. Live music plays through the afternoon, and an arts and craft fair runs beside the shortcake line.

The Rotary and “experienced members of the community” run the day under the Homer Davenport Community Festivals, which also stage Homer Days in August. The organization takes its name from Homer Davenport, the political cartoonist born in the Waldo Hills south of Silverton on March 8, 1867.

Shortcake in Coolidge-McClaine Park

According to the festival’s own page, the berries have come since 2013 from Willamette Valley Fruit Products. They are grown in the Central Howell area and packed in Silverton. Before that, Oregon Fruit supplied locally grown berries for many years, and earlier still the festival used a mix of Oregon Fruit and Silverton berries. Historian Gus Frederick, speaking in 2021, named a different supplier for the years since 2013: Willamette Valley Pie Company.

The park itself came close to missing the 2026 festival. A storm in December 2025 damaged its trees, and the city closed the grounds. An urban forester inventoried every tree and ranked the hazards. Harrity Tree Specialists then removed and pruned trees from April 10 to April 29, 2026, with a biologist and bird surveyor on hand, and the city expected the closure to last through May. On June 21 the shortcake was served in the park as usual.

The Strawberry Court returns

The 2026 festival brought back the Strawberry Court. “We haven’t had one in close to 30 years,” said Deanne Feller of the festival board. She learned of the old custom from Lisa Combs, a former Strawberry Court winner who still volunteers at the festival. “Traditionally they went out in the fields and found the biggest strawberry,” Feller said of how the Strawberry Queen was chosen. That method made sense when the berries came from local farms, and the board chose another one once they no longer did. “We thought, instead of a traditional court, let’s do it scholarship-based,” Feller said.

Members of Silverton High School’s junior class wrote 300-word essays about their community service. First place carried a $1,000 scholarship, and second and third carried $250 each.

The first-place award went to Violet Ammon, who joined the Associated Student Body as a freshman and served as its communications officer and then its secretary. She cared for her grandfather in his final days in December 2024. “I want to be a hospice nurse,” she said. “Because I would like to help more people.”

Sosie Thompson moved to Silverton from Coburg at age 11 and hopes to become a lawyer. “I’m excited,” she said. “I love strawberries!”

Hunter Siewell raises hogs and chickens on his family’s farm and served on the City of Silverton’s Comprehensive Plan Update Task Force. He plans to become a veterinarian. “Service… can help you grow and get your name out there,” he said. “It shows you were there.”

The court hands out shortcake beside the Rotary. “There’ll be a break for music and they’ll announce the court…” Feller said.

Marshall berries at the Grange hall

The festival began in 1951 inside the Silverton Hills Grange Hall on the Silver Falls Highway, as a fundraiser to maintain the building. A plate cost 50 cents. The Marshall berries grown in the Silverton Hills were known for their size and flavor. “The Silverton Hills was once a major local producer of strawberries, which employed many folks,” Frederick said.

Attendance grew year by year. In 1954, Silverton’s Centennial moved many in the crowd to come in pioneer settler costume. By 1955, 600 people came, and newspapers of the day reported tourists from several other states among them, stopping on their way to Silver Falls State Park. In 1956 an advance ticket contest began, and the young woman who sold the most tickets became queen of the festival. That account, from a 2009 Our Town history, differs from the biggest-berry method Feller described.

The 1957 strawberry feed brought 1,200 guests to the Grange hall. A newspaper of the day counted what they ate: “Ninety crates of strawberries, 24 gallons of ice cream, 23 quarts of whipping cream, 29 cakes, 75 pounds of biscuit mix and almost a case of coffee.” The same account described the day: “The large crowd came in a steady stream from noon to closing time at 8 p.m.… Berries were brought in fresh from the nearby fields as they were used and batches of shortcake were baked in the Grange kitchen as needed.” The crew were volunteers, mostly Grange members. Women worked the kitchen, men washed berries outside, and members of the Silverton Chamber of Commerce came up to direct parking.

In its tenth year the festival drew 1,525 people. “The Silver Falls Highway looked like the Los Angeles Freeway Sunday,” a reporter wrote, “as hundreds of cars headed for the Silverton Hills Grange and the annual festival.” In 1963 the Grange raised the price to 75 cents, and the crowds kept coming.

California berries and a year off

The hill growers eventually lost out to California. California berries were less fragile, easier to ship, and gave a higher yield per acre. Many local growers turned to other crops, and Christmas trees came to dominate the Silverton Hills. The Grange began buying berries for the June feast.

In 1995, after 44 years in the hills, the festival moved down to Coolidge & McClaine Park. It kept the name Silverton Hills Strawberry Festival in honor of where it began. By 2009 the day opened at 8 a.m. with a French toast and sausage breakfast cooked by Boy Scouts, and a chicken barbecue followed at noon.

Frederick has worked to dispel what he calls the “persistent myth” that the festival’s berries come from far away. “While our berries are not from the Silverton Hills, they are local,” he said. He did admit to one exception. “One year in the 1990s there were no local berries available, and the festival was forced to get ‘alien’ berries from California.” Since then, he said, organizers have bought only local fruit.

In 2020 the festival was canceled for the first time since it started. The 2021 edition was planned as a drive-up event. It switched at the last minute to an in-person festival, and according to the city’s summer newsletter nearly 1,400 people came. The price rose that year from $6 to $7. Frederick noted that the cancellation made 2021 technically the sixty-ninth festival, though organizers claimed all 70 years. The count has stayed loose since. Our Town billed the June 21, 2026 festival as its 75th year, while the festival’s own page assigns the 75th anniversary to Father’s Day, June 20, 2027.

“Grab your strawberry shortcake, and eat in the park!” Frederick said.