The Fellsmere Frog Leg Festival is a city fundraiser held annually in Fellsmere, Florida in the third week of January. The first festival, proposed by Fran Adams and other local residents, was planned in 1990 in order to increase the funds of Fellsmere’s recreation department. Since that time, festival attendance has grown tremendously and the city of Fellsmere continues to benefit from it.
In 1990 several members of the City of Fellsmere recreation committee were very concerned that there was no funding source available for the recreational needs of the children of Fellsmere. The Frog Leg Festival was a result of that concern.
The first festival was a brainchild of a small group of local residents in Fellsmere who guessed that frog legs might just be unique enough to entice folks to the city, so they made plans to sell frog leg dinners. The first year, local frog giggers caught 400 lbs of frogs in the marshes surrounding Fellsmere. The group thought this would be enough for the entire festival. Some of the committee, not realizing the draw of this event and figuring only a small number of people would attend, helped set up the dinner operations and then went off to the movies, leaving a few helpers to serve up the entrée.
Crowds of people lined up to buy dinners on the first night, throwing the volunteers into a panic! Several hours and 400 hundred dinners later, frog legs were sold out! The organizers rounded up as many volunteers as they could and had them out the next morning knocking on doors to buy frog legs from anyone in the community who had them.
Fellsmere has been proclaimed Frog Leg Capital of the World and The Frog Leg Festival holds 2 Book World Records for The Most Frog Legs served in the course of one business day and the Largest Frog Leg Festival in the world! With over 80,000 attendees serving over 7,000 pounds of frog legs and 2,000 pounds of gator, the Frog Leg Festival has come a long way from its humble roots of 400 dinners!
According to en.wikipedia.org; froglegfestival.com. Source of photos: internet
