How Midway is preserving its small-town roots with annual Swiss Days

MIDWAY — The ever-popular Swiss Days event is just one of many traditions the growing city of Midway utilizes to preserve its small-town roots.

What started as a small, local farmer's market 79 years ago has evolved into one of the most attended craft markets in the state. The weekend event takes over the town, filling up the town square with handmade vendors, food booths and activities.

Aja Phillips first joined the Swiss Days committee 16 years ago, but the festival has been part of her life for much longer.

"When you grow up here ... it's just you either love it or hate it. You join it, or you run away from it," she joked.

Swiss settlers founded the town of Midway, giving the area its unique charm and heritage. Swiss Days aims to preserve that history through Swiss food options, such as the iconic lemon yodel, Swiss and German musical entertainment and the service-oriented Swiss Miss royalty program for youth girls.

The weekend event, complete with a parade, 10K race, barbecue dinner, breakfast and 150-plus vendor market, is entirely run each year by volunteers.

Phillips' father grew up in Midway and volunteered at Swiss Days throughout his life. Most youth and teenagers help put up barricades for parking lots, set up tents or run the scone stands.

"A lot of people go away for Labor Day weekend, and that's fine, but a lot of people choose to embrace it. If the chaos is coming, you might as well embrace it and be a part of it," she said.

While it would be easy to hire companies to do the manual labor, keeping it run by volunteers and sourcing the food from local farmers preserves the heart of the event.

"It's just the tradition of continuing to do it. Tradition of keeping it volunteers. ... I think we easily keep it as small-town as we can. Yes, we are growing, but I think it has maintained its Swiss heritage and respect by keeping some of the same traditions," she said.

One unique characteristic of Swiss Days is that all vendors must have handmade products. More than 300 vendors apply to be part of the festival, and each one is juried and selected to participate in the final approximately 160 booths.

As the event has grown, the small streets have become overrun with visitor vehicles, leading to a free shuttle service to address parking issues.

Phillips' parents live kitty-corner to the square, and Phillips, who now lives just a few blocks away, used to live next to the fire station, meaning they were basically locked in during the weekend while the event occurred.

Despite the craziness of Swiss Days, Phillips said many of the locals are happy to share their beautiful, peaceful town and show off its quaint charm. She loves that it's a time the people of Midway can come together and really get to know one another in their community.

"In our day-to-day life, we get so tied up with our own lives and jobs; this is that one chance to really get to know not only your neighbors but your community," she said. "You're setting up and creating an event to welcome a lot of people into our town."

She said everyone is just happy, kind and willing to serve, which speaks highly to the character of the valley residents.

"We very much are still small-town people that are very kind, and we try to show that to others and be as helpful as we can to people and welcome them into our town for the weekend," she said.

The Swiss Days market is open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. More details are available on the Swiss Days website.

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