Ionia United Methodist Church is the main location for the Ionia Fall Festival. File photo
BY DEB AND TIM SMITH
If our series of articles on the historic hamlet of Ionia caught your fancy or piqued your curiosity, we have the perfect excuse for you to go check the place out in person. The 26th Annual Ionia Fall Festival will take place on Saturday, September 21st and it will be an all-day celebration of the community’s agricultural heritage.
The events primarily take place at the Ionia United Methodist Church which is located at 2120 Elton Rd. An outline of the day’s schedule is bullet listed for you below.
- 7:30 AM – 9:30 AM ~ Coffee & Donuts
- 10:00 AM – 4:30 AM ~ Chow Hut serves hot dogs, burgers & more
- 11:30 AM till sold out ~ Chicken BBQ
- 1:00 PM ~ Tractor Parade
- Morning through the parade ~ Tractor & implement displays behind church
- All day long ~ Cake & Dessert Wheel; Coin Toss; Door Prizes; Hayrides to the Wolk Observatory; Children’s Games & Crafts; Historical & other Displays & Demonstrations; Scout demonstrations; & much, much more.
The Festival’s Tractor Parade, now in its 20th year, features tractors from all over western NY and it is one of the largest in Western New York. As we mentioned in our schedule above, the parade rolls out at 1:00 pm but the vehicles are on display all day long.
DIRECTIONS FROM MENDON ~ Obviously most people who don’t already know where this is will just GPS it, but to give those people an immediate perspective think of it this way. If you head south from the 4 corners of Mendon on Rt. 64 you’ll see that the bright green street signs identify that stretch of Rt. 64 as Mendon-Ionia Rd. and they don’t call it Mendon-Ionia Rd. for nothin’. Ionia is about five miles down the road from Mendon. Turn right onto Elton Road and the church will be on your right.
DIRECTIONS FROM HF ~ Coming from Honeoye Falls, you’re going to take Ontario Street (Rt. 65) and basically follow that straight to Ionia. It’s under 6 miles from the 4 corners of HF to Ionia and the only navigational nuance is that when you get to the fork in the road about halfway there, you’ll want to veer left onto County Road 14 which will take you right into the heart of Ionia where you’ll turn right onto Elton Road and the church will be on the right.
DIRECTIONS FROM LIMA ~ Coming from Lima, you have an 8-mile trip. Head east on Rt. 5 & 20 and about 5 miles out you’ll turn left on Elton Road. From there, you’ve got a 3-mile jaunt into beautiful downtown Ionia where you’ll find the church on your left, coming from this direction.
CONTACT INFO ~ More information can be found on the Ionia United Methodist Church website at www.ioniaumc.org. For tractor parade information contact John Bennett at 585-657-6245. For vendor booth information contact Roger Cullen 585-857-3140. We encourage everyone to enjoy this Ionia opportunity. Please come join us for a fun fall day in the country!
