McGinn: The trials and tribulations of Chuck Harris

The embattled creator of the Springfield Entertainment Group trudges on with the Springfield Homecoming Festival.

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By Andrew McGinn, Staff Writer Updated 5:19 PM Friday, September 25, 2009

Back in 1800, Chuck Harris would’ve been one heck of a pioneer.

He’s got a tomahawk in the back, a bear clamped onto his leg and a nasty bout of dysentery, but he keeps coming.

A driving blizzard forces him to shoot one of his own oxen, slice it open and spend the night inside — tauntaun style — but he keeps trudging.

He cannot, and will not, be stopped.

But on the banks of the Buck Creek, not far from where a first lonely log cabin was built 208 years ago, Harris will make his stand.

And in doing so, he faces all the same uncertainties James Demint faced when he settled there in 1801.

From that first log cabin, Demint planned out the city we now know as Springfield.

As the embattled creator of the Springfield Entertainment Group, Harris hopes his Springfield Homecoming Festival — set for Oct. 10-11 in the unlikely spot under the Spring Street overpass on Warder Street — will flourish.

That the people will come, share in his vision and feel a sense of community.

He wants to follow in Demint’s footsteps — not the poor loser who laid out New Boston.

“I’m here to stay, and I’m going to keep pushing these things,” Harris declared this week. “You can’t push me off to the side.”

He thought for a second.

“Well,” he smiled, “they did push me off to the side with Warder Street.”

When Demint left Simon Kenton’s camp out by the present-day Ohio Masonic Home for new digs a little further east, he undoubtedly had his pick of spots.

In 2009, Harris, a 40-year-old truck driver, isn’t so fortunate.

His location of choice for the festival — a two-day fling featuring music, a talent show, amusement rides, pro wrestling, a “time-warp prom” and more — was taken.

Seems the city has a claim on City Hall Plaza.

“It’s a sweet setup at City Hall Plaza,” Harris said.

But just like when he ran into zoning problems with his Rei Lakes country music festival two summers ago or rain clouds with his Fourth of July veterans celebration this summer, Harris should’ve been mentally prepared for what crap-luck would befall this latest venture.

“Connie Chappell said City Hall Plaza is not an amusement park,” Harris said.

No plaza for him.

As Chappell, the city clerk, explained, the city manager doesn’t want two festivals downtown back-to-back. (The city’s own CultureFest is this weekend.)

“It was his opinion,” Chappell said, “we should not overtax downtown with Holiday in the City coming.”

Uh.

Downtown, overused?

The city wanted to play nice, though — so like the federal government in the 1800s offering the Badlands to the proud Sioux, it offered the old Navistar site on Lagonda Avenue to Harris.

“I went over and looked at it,” he said. “That place is a dump.”

Harris himself eventually suggested the entire stretch of Warder Street from Fountain Avenue to the Hollandia Botanical Gardens.

“It’s close to downtown and there’s little traffic,” Harris said. “I was looking for something they couldn’t come back with some lame excuse on.”

The city jumped on it, selling the somewhat obscure spot to Harris as the “birthplace of Springfield” — the place near where Demint plopped down his log cabin.

“When I thought about that location,” Chappell said, “it seemed like a good venue with the creek there. I liked the vision of it.”

So Harris hopes to make the best out of being on Warder Street, a tomahawk’s throw from the city’s first log cabin.

“I wish it was still there,” Harris said, “because I might be sleeping in it.”

Contact this reporter at (937) 328-0352 or amcginn@coxohio.com.

How to go

What: Springfield Homecoming Festival

When: 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. Oct. 10 and 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Oct. 11; music highlights include the country duo O’Shea (from CMT’s “Can You Duet”) at 8 p.m. Oct. 10 and the Richard Carey Project at 2 p.m. Oct. 11.

Cost: Free, with a cost for cornhole tournaments and a dance

More info: E-mail ceharris0109 @aol.com

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