Graham Jaehnig/Daily Mining Gazette The Chassell Strawberry Festival parade has always been among the most popular parades in the Copper Country. The 2021 festival broke previous attendance records, as this photograph shows.

CHASSELL TOWNSHIP – This weekend marks the 77th Copper Country Strawberry Festival. It began on a rainy Thursday, July 6, 1949. The festival was hosted by the Chassell Lions Club as it is today.

Strawberries have been a significant part of Chassell’s economy – and identity – since the early 20th century. By the 1920s, the local markets became saturated, according the Copper Country Strawberry Festival website.

Local strawberry farmers studied a shipping organization in Bayfield, Wisconsin, and in 1935, and again in 1936, a group of growers traveled to Bayfield to learn how to set up and run such an operation in Chassell.

Out of this effort grew the Copper Country Strawberry Growers Association, founded in mid-1936. So successful was the effort that the association started the annual Chassell Strawberry Festival in 1949.

The July 6, 1949 edition of the Daily Mining Gazette contained a headline, on page six, that spanned the top of the page:

“Strawberry Festival Will Open Tomorrow.”

The first strawberry festival was a three-day extravaganza which began with Michigan Governor G. Mennen Williams scheduled to give the opening speech on Thursday at 3 p.m., flying to the Copper Country just for the event, according to the Gazette. He was two hours late. More than 1,600 people waited for his arrival, however, and he also was given the honor of crowning the first Strawberry Queen, 17-year-old Lucille Tormala, from Portage Entry.

While the festival has remained a three-day event over the past 77 years, events have varied. According to the Chassell Strawberry Festival website, the festival has always included a parade. It has also included strawberry auctions, berry judging, and of course, lots of strawberry shortcake. The website boasts that in 2011, 4,000 strawberry shortcakes were sold at the festival.