The Historic Happy Valley Old-Time Fiddlers' Convention is a nonprofit, community-driven event designed to preserve and promote the cultural-heritage resources of Happy and Yadkin Valley through an annual music festival that highlights traditional old-time and bluegrass music and rural traditions, doing so in such a way that provides wholesome family activities and protects our farmland and community values while promoting trust between the community and the event. All proceeds are reinvested into convention and the community.
2005: The Historic Happy Valley Old-Time Fiddlers' Convention is started by a small group of volunteers from the Yadkin Valley planning committee in Caldwell County. Through a grant from the North Carolina Arts Council and with assistance from the Caldwell County Chamber of Commerce and the Caldwell Arts Council, the committee started its inaugural event on Saturday, October 22, 2005. Attendees enjoyed listening to special performances by Bobby McMillian, Carolina Ray, Bobby Hicks, and the Kruger Brothers. A total of 62 individual musicians, five old-time bands and five bluegrass bands competed.
2006: The convention moves to warmer weather during Labor Day weekend. Friday activities are added along with a rubber duck derby on Saturday. A total of 67 individual musicians, seven old-time bands, ten bluegrass bands, and 11 flatfoot dancers competed. Festival attendance reaches 1,500.
2007: The festival expands to three days with its inaugural Gospel Sunday. The "Makers Meet the Players" was added to Saturday's activities, which included a unique gathering of instrument makers from the region. Over 17 luthiers came together to share their craftwork.
The Upper Yadkin River Valley in Caldwell and Wilkes counties, also known locally as Historic Happy Valley, has been farmed continuously since the 18th century. Some of the first settlers to arrive to the once-dominant Cherokee valley came in the late 1700s.
Happy Valley was a fertile region, and agriculture played an important role to families that settled in the valley. A number of farmers in the valley today are descendants of these early families and a significant amount of farmland bordering the river is still used for grazing cattle and cultivating corn and hay. In addition, some residents maintain occupational traditions that are holdovers from earlier generations, such as training and working draft animals, cultivating "heritage" vegetables and fruits, and constructing traditional pole and log barns and outbuildings.
Local farmers and their neighbors pass down stories associated with some significant historical events that have occurred in Historic Happy Valley. The Over Mountain Men on their way to battle at Kings Mountain in 1780 used the dirt path, still visible in places, that runs along the Yadkin River. The community of Elkville was home to and the base of operations for Daniel Boone during the years he explored and settled Kentucky. Thomas Dula (known as Tom Dooley), a local man who served with distinction during the Civil War, was accused of murdering a neighbor, Laura Foster, in 1867. The events surrounding this crime and Dula's subsequent trial and execution live on in a now-famous ballad, "Hang Down Your Head, Tom Dooley," which is still performed by remarkable singers and musicians from the region. General William Lenoir and his family built their homestead in the valley between 1788 and 1792 on the former site of the fort, which was designed to protect settlers from the early Native American's in the area. The home of William Lenoir has been fully restored to its late eighteenth, early nineteenth century grandeur and features over 300 pieces of original furnishings and artifacts. In addition to its music traditions, Historic Happy Valley is home to quilters, woodworkers and other craft artists, painters, and storytellers. The Valley is also the location of 13 sites on the National Register of Historic Places, including The Patterson School Historic District, which is one of only two rural historic districts in North Carolina.