Page 15 - Cullman Oktoberfest 2021

get to know
cullman's
oktoberfest
Words By: Dr. William Mann
Photos provided by: Cullman County
Museum & CPRST
On October 12, 1510, the royal family of Bavaria invited the citizens of Munich to a five-day public celebration of the marriage of Crown Prince Ludwig to Princess Therese of Saxony-Hildburghausen, with festivites including a parade and horse races. A year later, the city repeated the celebration, adding an agricultural fair, and Oktoberfest was born. In 1818, the festival grew again with the addition of carnival booths. Over the years, other cities began to copy Munich’s idea and Oktoberfest became a worldwide celebration of German heritage, not to mention a fair excuse to down a little beer and sausage.
Enter Cullman, Alabama
When Bavarian John Cullmann established the settlement that bears his name in 1873, he invited his German countrymen to join him, and they did. As late as 1899, a visitor noted, “A stay in Cullman is the next thing to a trip to Germany. Everything is foreign.”
By the late 1890’s, Cullman was holding an annual “German Day” in June, marking the anniversary of the incorporation of the town; some sources also claim that a German Day was held in the fall. Whenever occurring, it was a one-day event featuring a parade, speeches, and an evening ball. The celebration lasted at least through 1915, when a note in a Winston County paper said that Cullman’s German Day had been held on June 10, adding with a touch of humor that President Woodrow Wilson (who had just taken a hard stand against Germany in the wake of the sinking of the Lusitania) had not been invited to the party. German Day seems to have faded away as Cullman made its way farther into the 20th century.
“A STAY IN CULLMAN IS THE NEXT THING TO A TRIP TO GERMANY. EVERYTHING IS FOREIGN.”
Over the years, Cullman became progressively less German in its culture, taking more pride in its growing reputation as a progressive city. In 1939, the town adopted a new annual celebration that focused not on culture but agriculture: The Strawberry Festival.
Then came Cullman’s centennial in the 1970’s. Growing interest in the area’s German heritage led to the 1976 opening of the Cullman County Museum in a reconstruction of Col. Cullmann’s home, an event attended by the mayor of Frankweiler, Germany, John Cullmann’s hometown. In this atmosphere, an encounter with the Bavarian celebration was inevitable.
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