Romeo's Peach Festival, since 1931

The little village of Romeo, up in the orchards of northern Macomb County, throws one of Michigan’s oldest festivals every Labor Day weekend (by its own count, the state’s second-oldest). The peaches came first: back around 1813, an early settler named Michael Bowerman planted peach pits he’d carried from New York, and the sandy ridges around Romeo turned out to be perfect peach country (his orchard grew into today’s Westview Orchards). By the early 1900s the area was shipping out huge crops, and in 1931 local orchard owners and the village president started the Romeo Peach Festival to celebrate — and sell — the harvest. It’s been going ever since, run for decades by the local Lions Club. These days it’s a five-day, small-town blowout with carnival rides, a car show, fireworks, and three different parades, including a Labor Day morning Peach Parade led by the year’s crowned Peach Queen. Romeo itself is worth a slow stroll any time of year — its downtown of 1800s storefronts and grand old homes has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1970.

The festival runs every Labor Day weekend; you can find the schedule at romeopeachfestival.com.