The story
Powhatan Pawpaw Festival in Powhatan
The Powhatan Pawpaw Festival is a fall celebration at Powhatan State Park in central Virginia built around the pawpaw, North America's largest native edible fruit, which grows wild in the park's James River floodplain forests. The festival mixes food and craft vendors, acoustic music, ranger-led ecology programs, animal encounters and five- and ten-mile trail races through the park's riverside trails.
Virginia's Department of Conservation and Recreation introduced the Pawpaw Festival at Powhatan State Park in the early 2020s, building a one-day fall event around a fruit most visitors had never tasted: the pawpaw, a custardy, tropical-flavored fruit that ranks as the largest edible fruit native to North America.