Sweet corn, boiled or grilled — it’s one of the delicacies of summer, and there’s no place to find better corn than in the Fort Gibson river bottom land, locals say.

Fort Gibson is celebrating that crop this year with a Corn Festival that opens Friday evening and continues through Saturday.

There will be bushels and bushels of corn for sale (at about $14 each) and, on Saturday, vendors will be serving up not only corn on the cob and kettle corn, they also will be serving turkey legs and Indian tacos, snow cones and polish sausages and lots of other fare, said Debby Daniels, a Corn Festival Committee member.

There will also be a corn cookbook for sale at $5 each. It is made up of hundreds of recipes for corn dishes contributed by area residents.

The festival is a fundraiser benefiting the proposed Fort Gibson Sports and Recreation Complex.

This year’s crop is expected to be a good one, said John Harrison, retired FFA teacher and an area farmer.

Harrison no longer plants corn, but he sells a lot of Fort Gibson grown corn, watermelons, cantaloupes and other produce at his roadside stand east of Fort Gibson on Oklahoma 10.

“It’s looking good,” Harrison said of this year’s crop.

There are two main sweet corn producers in the Fort Gibson area — Dick Sheffield and his son, David Sheffield, Harrison said.

They have about 30 acres planted in several varieties of the summer delicacy, Harrison said. Once started, the harvest should last about three weeks.

Reach Liz McMahan at 918-684-2926 orClick Here to Send Email