Cookie Barn Celebrating 20 Years

A little more than 20 years ago, the late Burt Lehman attended an All Ford event in Carlisle, Pa.  While there Bert saw a lady doing a good business selling large cookies in a “Cookie Barn”. He though, what a good project for the Forest County Historical Society (FCHS) back home.   Returning to Tionesta, full of enthusiasm, he convinced the board to go full speed ahead preparing our “Cookie Barn” for the 1999 Indian Festival.

Some community minded people, including Mary Lee Lehman, Annie Wright, and the late Wilma Heasley, along with Burt, gathered all the necessary equipment and also some great cookie bakers allowing the FCHS to open that summer with their now famous 5-inch cookies.

Every year many of the same women who volunteered that first year, along with some new bakers, are still baking the delicious variety that they offer every year.  These bakers, along with the smiling faces that offer you your choice of cookies, and the volunteers that set up tents for the cookie barn are the backbone of this fund raiser at the Indian Festival.

The past years, the St. Anthony Ladies Guild has supported the Cookie Barn by soliciting cookies and helping to sell them on Thursday evening of the Festival.

Festival goers stop in the front of the History museum on Elm Street as they go to and from activities of the Indian Festival.  One woman brings her children to select their cookies before the parade every year. Another cookie lover brings his ice chest to fill with cookies to store in his freezer-others stop for dessert after eating lunch or dinner at some of the food booths throughout the festival.

FCHS thanks everyone for their loyal support to the “Cookie Barn” over the past 20 years.  The price is still the same as 1999.