19th Annual Soule' Live Steam Festival

It’s a new month and another festival in Downtown Meridian. Today kicks off the 19th Annual Sole’ Live Steam Festival. The two-day event takes a look back at how the American Industrial Revolution changed our lives and economy forever.

"Well, they'll get to experience the sights, sounds, and smells of live steam. Okay. We're going to continue. You'll see demonstrations of molten iron pouring and you'll see the print shop in operation and many, many other things here, explained Gary Hatcher the Executive Director of the Mississippi Heritage Museum.

Those are just some of the things you can expect with a visit to the Soule' Live Steam Festival, the President of the Museum Association says they want to inform the younger generation of how machinery was 200 years ago.

"We hope to show people, and especially young people, what level of society we have today that's so wonderful and how it was 200 years ago. So we don't want to go back to 200 years ago. And you need to learn how hard people work back in those days and all the machinery that they were able to use. And there is nothing in here that is computer-driven or timed or scheduled or anything is all mechanical," said Jim Mcrae.

We hear from some volunteers of the Festival on what made them want to be a part of the festival and some even shares what their favorite part are about the events.

"I find this technology fascinating and things that people need to understand, where we come from and how we've got to the type of manufacturing that we do today," said Matthew Calahan.

"Well, the fact that this is the last company in America that produces steam engines, this one here that we're looking at is a twin-cylinder engine designed in 1921, and it was in production right up until the 1990s, which is remarkable," said Henrey Taves.

The festival will continue tomorrow from 9 am until 4 pm right here in downtown meridian.