Perry County Dogwood Festival Returns April 25-26 Across County Sites

Perry County’s Dogwood Festival will return free of charge April 25-26, spreading from St. Pius Church to the Rome Courthouse and turning the county’s spring bloom into a two-day drive through Tell City, Rome and the roads between.

The Perry County Convention and Visitors Bureau says the festival will include food vendors, flea markets, craft booths, quilt shows, sassafras tea, a petting zoo and live music. Because the activities are spread across several locations, families will need to plan for time on the road as much as time at each stop. The setup is less a single downtown block party than a countywide tour, with visitors moving between church grounds, historic Rome and other sites tied to the celebration.

That route is part of the festival’s draw. Perry County’s landscape, with more than 60,000 acres of Hoosier National Forest and 40 miles of Ohio River border, gives the Dogwood Festival a scenic backdrop that few local events can match. For visitors, that means a weekend built around blossoms, heritage food and stops that reflect both Tell City and Rome’s role in the county’s spring tourism season.

The festival also carries a long local history. Perry County Convention and Visitors Bureau social media says it began in 1962 as a spring celebration organized by the late Eugene Weidman of St. Pius Catholic Church. Those early tours traveled from Troy to Rome, where women of Rome Methodist Church made dinners and served sassafras tea. Archived newspaper references show the event was already in its 13th annual year in 1974, appeared again in coverage in 1977 and later reached a 52nd Perry County Dogwood Tour, showing how long the tradition has stayed part of the county calendar.

Recent bureau posts have also pointed to activity at St. Pius Catholic Church Parish Center and the Rome Courthouse, including chicken and dumpling dinners at St. Pius Catholic Church Parish Center. For Perry County, the festival remains both a spring outing and a reminder that church groups, heritage sites and local volunteers still anchor some of the county’s most recognizable public traditions.