{"id":539,"date":"2012-10-31T11:26:03","date_gmt":"2012-10-31T15:26:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.litchfieldhistoricalsociety.org\/blog\/?p=539"},"modified":"2016-12-09T12:22:23","modified_gmt":"2016-12-09T16:22:23","slug":"halloween-in-litchfield","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.litchfieldhistoricalsociety.org\/?p=539","title":{"rendered":"Halloween in Litchfield"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This morning I started to wonder when door-to-door trick-or-treating became a custom. After a quick Internet search, it seemed likely that it was sometime in the 1950s. I turned to the Litchfield Enquirer to see what was going on in town mid-century. While I did not find mention of door-to-door candy collecting, I did find that townspeople were definitely celebrating Halloween.<a href=\"http:\/\/www.litchfieldhistoricalsociety.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/enquirer-10-1954-3.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-540 alignleft\" style=\"border: 5px solid black; margin: 5px;\" title=\"enquirer 10 1954 3\" src=\"http:\/\/www.litchfieldhistoricalsociety.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/enquirer-10-1954-3.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"210\" height=\"372\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">I started my search in 1954, and found the article to the left about the Lion&#8217;s Club&#8217;s annual party which began in 1953.\u00a0 I also found this mention of a party at the East Litchfield Volunteer Fire House:\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.litchfieldhistoricalsociety.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/enquirer-10-1954-2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-541 aligncenter\" style=\"border: 5px solid black; margin: 5px;\" title=\"enquirer 10 1954 2\" src=\"http:\/\/www.litchfieldhistoricalsociety.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/enquirer-10-1954-2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"250\" height=\"139\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.litchfieldhistoricalsociety.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/enquirer-10-1954-1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-542 alignleft\" style=\"border: 5px solid black; margin: 5px;\" title=\"enquirer 10 1954 1\" src=\"http:\/\/www.litchfieldhistoricalsociety.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/enquirer-10-1954-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"164\" height=\"359\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>And this great advertisement for the Litchfield Food &amp; Bakery Co.\u00a0 Aren&#8217;t those prices amazing!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.litchfieldhistoricalsociety.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/enquirer-10-1955-4.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-543 alignleft\" style=\"border: 5px solid black; margin: 5px;\" title=\"enquirer 10 1955 4\" src=\"http:\/\/www.litchfieldhistoricalsociety.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/enquirer-10-1955-4.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"287\" height=\"293\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I then forwarded the film reel to 1955 (yep, we&#8217;re kickin&#8217; it old school with a working microfilm reader) and found that the Lion&#8217;s Club event was even bigger. The article above gives all the details for those who wanted to participate. The one to follow reports on the actual event.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.litchfieldhistoricalsociety.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/enquirer-10-1955-3.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-544 alignleft\" style=\"border: 5px solid black; margin: 5px;\" title=\"enquirer 10 1955 2\" src=\"http:\/\/www.litchfieldhistoricalsociety.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/enquirer-10-1955-2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"296\" height=\"996\" \/><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-545 aligncenter\" style=\"border: 5px solid black; margin-top: 5px; margin-bottom: 5px;\" title=\"enquirer 10 1955 3\" src=\"http:\/\/www.litchfieldhistoricalsociety.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/enquirer-10-1955-3.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"505\" height=\"358\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.litchfieldhistoricalsociety.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/enquirer-10-1955.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-546\" style=\"border: 5px solid black; margin: 5px;\" title=\"enquirer 10 1955\" src=\"http:\/\/www.litchfieldhistoricalsociety.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/enquirer-10-1955.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"460\" height=\"368\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>How long did the Lion&#8217;s Club continue this tradition? And were children trick-or-treating at houses during these years?\u00a0 Please share your recollections of Litchfield&#8217;s Halloween traditions!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This morning I started to wonder when door-to-door trick-or-treating became a custom. After a quick Internet search, it seemed likely that it was sometime in the 1950s. I turned to the Litchfield Enquirer to see what was going on in town mid-century. While I did not find mention of door-to-door candy collecting, I did find [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.litchfieldhistoricalsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.litchfieldhistoricalsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.litchfieldhistoricalsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.litchfieldhistoricalsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.litchfieldhistoricalsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=539"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blog.litchfieldhistoricalsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":552,"href":"https:\/\/blog.litchfieldhistoricalsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539\/revisions\/552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.litchfieldhistoricalsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.litchfieldhistoricalsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.litchfieldhistoricalsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}