Hometown Days: the town's festival, both foundings printed whole

LAST FULL WEEKEND OF JULY · twentieth edition 2025; America's-250th edition 2026; next edition 23–25 July 2027

The festival's own record and the town's memory disagree about when it began, and both print: the festival's own telling — the Hometown Cup's and the festival organization's accounts — dates the founding to 2005: the 2025 playing of its Wiffle Ball championship was billed the festival's twentieth anniversary of a 2005 founding, the 2025 edition counted the twentieth because the 2020 festival was cancelled in the pandemic (the tournament played on without it), and the festival's own 2020 parade application calls 2020 "our 16th year" — arithmetic that only works from 2005. The library-and-society telling — the New Carlisle Public Library's post of 23 July 2024, citing Historic New Carlisle's post of 21 July 2021 — traces a name lineage instead: Sidewalk Days, begun in the 1950s, became Historical Days in 1973, and Hometown Days in 2000. The two tellings are not reconciled here, because the record reached does not reconcile them: the first dates the present festival's organization, the second dates the town's summer celebration under its successive names, and each stands at its carrier's strength. The festival itself is not in dispute: it fills Memorial Park and closes Michigan Street for its Saturday-noon parade on the last full weekend of July; its standing furniture is the car show, the pedal pull, live performances, and the Wiffle Ball championship carried whole in Sports; the town's Saturday farmers' market in Memorial Park (June through September) gives up its ground on the festival Saturday, by the town's own site. The 2026 edition was staged as the town's America's-250th Hometown Days; the next edition is announced for 23–25 July 2027. A researcher who follows the old address will be lied to; the correction is printed so they are not.

Sources:

1. Hometown Cup / festival organization accounts (hometowncup.com) — the 2005 founding, the twentieth-edition accounting of 2025, the 2020 parade application's "16th year," the 23–25 July 2027 dates.
2. New Carlisle Public Library posting, 23 July 2024, citing Historic New Carlisle posting, 21 July 2021 — the Sidewalk Days → Historical Days (1973) → Hometown Days (2000) lineage.
3. Town of New Carlisle official site — the Memorial Park farmers' market season and its festival-Saturday exception; the America's-250th edition.
4. Direct read of hometowndays.org, November 2026 — the domain's present gambling-spam content, reported as found.