2015 JENSEN BEACH PINEAPPLE FESTIVAL ... November 13 - 15
The Jensen Beach Pineapple Festival is in its 28th year history this weekend, November 13 -15, 2015. The festival is one of the remaining few true street festivals in South Florida and one of the largest! The weekend of festivities acknowledges the “community’s rich pineapple heritage.”
John Lawrence Jensen, of Denmark, arrived to the area in 1881. He set up his plantation and began cultivating and farming pineapples. This area became known as the Town of Jensen. By 1894, Henry Flagler’s Florida East Coast Railway, reached the Town of Jensen. Fresh pineapple shipments were loaded directly onto the freight cars and sent north. The 19th century Town of Jensen revolved around pineapple farming and was known as the “Pineapple Capital of the World”. By 1895, the Town of Jensen was shipping over one million boxes of pineapples each year during the June/July season!
A horrific freeze (by Florida standards) disseminated crops and most of the small plantations did not survive. Two catastrophic fires, in 1908 and 1910, destroyed the rest of the pineapple farms and town. By 1920, plantation growers switched their crops to citrus fruits, but kept the pineapple as a symbol of the town.
The Jensen Beach Chamber of Commerce produces the Jensen Beach Pineapple Festival offering world-class concerts, arts, crafts, street performers, stunt shows and midway rides. Jensen Beach and Gregory Town, Eleuthera, Bahamas are “sister cities”. A main component of the Pineapple Fest is the Bahamian Market, featuring island music, authentic “Junkanoo”, food and crafts.
Fun for the entire family! V.I.P. and Preferred seating tickets on sale now for the 2015 Jensen Beach Pineapple Festival.
Leave A Comment