SIX MILE — If you’re looking for something to do this weekend, head on up to the Issaqueena Festival, held annually on the third Saturday in May in downtown Six Mile.
Entertainment, good food, arts, crafts and music will abound under the tents on Main Street with plenty to do for adults and children alike.
The Issaqueena festival is named for the legendary Indian maiden of the same name. Although the story has many adaptations, the basic premise is that Issaqueena falls in love with a white trader (some versions have her with an Oconee brave) and later overhears of an impending attack.
She sets out ahead of the braves to warn her lover — naming the local landmarks of Mile Creek, Six Mile, Twelve Mile, Eighteen Mile, Three and Twenty, Six and Twenty, and finally Ninety Six along the way.
The towns of Six Mile, Ninety Six and the creeks still exist.
She then marries the white trader/Oconee brave and starts a family. The family then builds (depending on the story) either a “stumphouse” home or a home on Stumphouse Mountain, just north of what is now Walhalla.
Her tribesmen, still seeking revenge for their spoiled attack plan, finally track down Issaqueena and chase her through the woods. She eludes her pursuers by leaping off a nearby waterfall now known as Issaqueena Falls.
The tribesmen, believing her to be dead, call off their chase and Issaqueena, who had actually landed on a ledge and hid out of sight behind the great wall of water, was able to return safely to her family and live happily ever after.
The Issaqueena Festival is held the third Saturday in May each year in downtown Six Mile. Main Street is closed from Liberty Highway to Six Mile Baptist church during the festival.
The legend is believed to have spun from the epic poem “Cateechee of Keowee” that was penned by J.W. Daniels in 1898.
The Festival is free to enter and will be hosted on Main Street in Six Mile from Liberty Highway to Six Mile Baptist church on Saturday, May 21. Yard sales and alcoholic beverages will not be permitted during the festival.
