Thousands gathered at Crystal Springs on Saturday for the town’s annual Tomato Festival.

Crystal Springs Mayor Sally Garland is excited to see “The Tomatopolis of the World” come together and take a sense of ownership over their town’s tomato heritage.

“Our citizens decorate their houses and hang tomatoes on their doors. So, there is a wonderful sense of pride and we always look forward to the last Saturday in June,” Garland said.

The festival kicked off with a 5k and kiddy parade down Main Street. There was also a car show and a wide variety of vendors from across the state. Among these vendors are local farms such as Rutledge selling the town’s famous tomatoes.

“We like to promote locally grown produce,” said local farmer Edward Rutledge. “Everything we grow I’ve ate myself and put in the freezer. We grow everything that is healthy and use a minimum of chemicals. We just encourage people to eat right, live right, and keep God first in their life.”

While the festival took place on Saturday, there was a pagent on Thursday and a dance hosted by the Crystal Springs Junior Auxiliary on Friday. The former of which crowned Bailey Barton as the Tomato Queen and Violent as the Tomato Pooch. For Barton, this was her first pagent experience and it was one she would never forget.

“So, there was six other people and we wrote questions down and folded them up,” Barton said. “When they pulled our number, We would go to the front and answer a question in front of everybody. I was the first one and my question was ‘What tomatoes do eat?’. I was like I don’t really eat tomatoes, but I told them that my favorite is fried green tomatoes. Everyone started dying out laughing and it just made the place entirely crack up. So, I think that is what probably got it.”