Fall is in the air at the annual Fort Ligonier Days festival

It’s not hard to tell that Tom Stablein enjoys helping organize the annual Fort Ligonier Days celebration — he has been its parade chairman since the mid-1990s.

“Seeing it all come together in a little town this size, and to be able to put on a festival like this is amazing,” Stablein said.

Fort Ligonier Days will take place Friday through Sunday (Oct. 13-15) throughout downtown Ligonier with live music, historical events at the fort, food, fun and more.

“One of the new things we’ve done this year is add some more food vendors,” Stablein said. “They’re located at the west end of town, so instead of just having food on The Diamond, we’ll also have it available down by Mellon Park. It’ll help spread the food out throughout the festival.”

Things kick off at 9 a.m. Friday when craft and food vendor booths open. Fort Ligonier, at 200 S. Market St., will open at 10 a.m. (regular admission fees apply) along with local merchant sidewalk sales and live music with Shirley Dragovich on the Mack Darr Stage on West Main Street. An official opening ceremony will be at noon on The Diamond.

Claudine DePaul, a Trib Total Media employee from Monroeville, has been part of the festival’s organizing group for the past seven years.

“We’ve done their program at the Trib the past few years, so I just got more and more involved in it and began going to the committee meetings,” DePaul said. “I just love working with all the volunteers. I can do a lot of my work for it during the day, but most of the volunteers put in a lot of time and effort after work to make the festival succeed.”

Other highlights include an 11 a.m. parade on Saturday along East and West Main Street, an 8:30 a.m. 5K run and walk leaving from Ligonier Valley High School on Sunday morning, and a full lineup of performers and historical events.

The festival began in 1958, when President Dwight Eisenhower visited Ligonier to help celebrate its bicentennial, Stablein said.

“The next year, they realized they had something and put it back together,” he said. “Calling it Fort Ligo­nier Days began in 1960.”

Over the years, Stablein said, he’s gotten positive feedback in some odd places.

“I ran into a guy in Canada once who brought up Fort Ligonier Days as soon as I told him where I was from,” he said. “The same thing happened once when I was on a cruise. It showcases our town and draws a lot of people every year.”

Free bus and shuttle service and a handicap-accessible bus will run from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday and Saturday and from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday. It will pick up passengers at the Ligo­nier Valley High School parking lot on Springer Road, as well as at the Laurel Valley Golf Club lot on Route 711. A craft loop shuttle bus will run among the craft display areas during the same hours.

Festival organizers remind attendees that pets, backpacks and open containers are not permitted in the festival areas.

For a full schedule of events, see FortLigonierDays.com.