Submitted photo The 40th annual Maple Syrup Festival will get underway Saturday in Pickens. The two-day event will conclude Sunday, and close to 2,000 visitors are projected to visit the community this weekend. In 2025, patrons stood in line, above, waiting to enjoy one of several pancake feeds offered during the event. 

PICKENS — The small community of Pickens is set for a population boom this weekend when the 40th annual West Virginia Maple Syrup Festival gets underway on Saturday.

The annual spring event will run through Sunday, and more than 2,000 visitors are expected to converge on the small area in Randolph Countym which has a normal population of less than 50 residents.

“This is our 40th year for the festival and I’ve been part of it since it started,” Debby Morgan, president of the Pickens Historical Society, told The Inter-Mountain. “The festival is always held on the third full weekend in the month of March and it’s grown a lot over the years.

“We started out in 1985 and we had no clue what we were getting into. I remember in our first year, we had more people than we expected. And it’s just grown every year since.”

Organizers have had to start bringing in food vendors to help keep up with the demand.

“When we first started out we just served pancakes, buckwheat cakes, and sold maple syrup,” Morgan said. “We also had a ham and bean dinner and the fire department sold hot dogs, and for several years that is all we had. But it just got crazy and that wasn’t enough to take care of the people. So we started adding other food vendors.”

To make sure everyone visiting Pickens gets their fare share of pancakes and West Virginia-made maple syrup, there will be three pancake feeds this weekend: two on Saturday, including one at the American Legion Hall (9 a.m. to 2 p.m.) and the other at the Pickens School (9 a.m. to 4 p.m.), and a third on Sunday at the Legion Hall (9 a.m. to 2 p.m.).

In addition to the trio of pancake feeds, there will be a ham and bean dinner in the Legion Hall on Saturday from 4:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m., and various food vendors will be set up throughout the community selling a variety of different items. As in the past, hot dogs will be available at the Fire Hall on both days of the festival.

The Maple Syrup Festival was the idea of a local maple farmer, Mike Ricter, who was looking to promote his product. Since its inception, the festival has only sold and served maple syrup produced in the Mountain State.

“All of our maple syrup is made in West Virginia, and most of it is made in the general area of Pickens,” Morgan said.

“Every year we have a good variety of syrup and we typically sell out of all of it.”

In addition to all the food items available, the festival will feature ongoing events throughout the weekend, including crafts sales at the Fire House and Quilt House, children’s games at the playground, tours of historic areas and buildings, live music entertainment at the Opera House, and a square dance Saturday night in Helvetia, from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m.

“All of the crafters say they do excellent and a lot of them tell us that this is their best festival of the year,” Morgan said. “I think a lot of people also come out because they have been shut up in the house and this is the first festival of the year. But March is always unpredictable when it comes to the weather, and one year we had over six inches of snow on the ground and people still came.”

Morgan said that the Maple Syrup Festival is a homecoming and reunion to many people who have lived in the Pickens community.

“I’ve watched kids grow up and bring their kids back,” Morgan continued. “I think the people in the Pickens and Helvetia are see this festival as sort of a homecoming.

“There are not a lot of people left here, so we have a lot of people coming home for the festival.”

For more information on this year’s Maple Syrup Festival, visit the festival’s Facebook page.