Visitors to next Saturday’s Roundabout Festival at the Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park can expect a full day of activities, according to the event’s planners. On Saturday, Oct. 13, Roundabout will celebrate the opening of the $65 million U.S. 27 bypass around Chickamauga Battlefield. The free seven-hour lifestyle celebration, which takes place on the grounds around the Chicka-mauga Battlefield Visitor Center, will offer food, music, crafts, historic recreations and children’s activities. Organizers expect 10,000 people to attend the festivities. “It’s a very full festival atmosphere,” said Karen Diamond, executive director of Friends of the Park, or FOP. “It’s all in the spirit of the 19th century or at least from the Civil War on up to the present. The Roundabout Committee determined that the most enjoyable way to commemorate the bypass opening would be to have something at the park itself,” she said. “We thought we’d raise the level of park awareness and give people the chance to really have a wonderful day.” Festivities will be appropriately centered on the Civil War and will include a Civil War reenactment, Diamond said. Activities will include artillery demonstrations, living history demonstra-tions of military life and demonstrations by artisans, such as blacksmiths, spinners, quilters and soap makers. The 8th Georgia Regiment Band, an authentic brass band that performs music of the Civil War period, will entertain. Well-known regional musicians Bill McCallie, Dalton Roberts, Tom Morgan and Lynn Haas will perform, along with numerous storytellers, lecturers and street performers every hour. Diamond said a large area will be set aside for children’s activities. The children’s area will offer pony rides, face painting, karaoke, old-fashioned group games, jugglers, song leaders, bubbleologists and balloon artists. Activities will be age appropriate for toddlers to 12-year-olds. Emmy Award-winning magician Max Howard will perform as The War Wizard, Professor Gus Rich at 2 p.m. at Roundabout and will be the featured entertainer at Evening at the Park, FOP’s fundraiser on Oct. 12. The executive director said a variety of festival foods, including such period favorites as hoecakes and homemade lemonade, will be for sale, as well as crafts and historical memorabilia. FOP will use proceeds from sales and concessions to support the park. Roundabout celebrates the culmination of 63 years of efforts to reroute U.S. 27 westward around the park. Diverting traffic to the new highway on the park’s perimeter will eliminate the chaos and safety hazards of 18,000 vehicles passing daily along the historic thoroughfare through the park, Diamond said. The relocation project is one of the few bypass roads around a Civil War battlefield ever legislated by Congress, which approved the bypass measure in 1987. Construction on the six-mile bypass began in 1994. The original stretch of U.S. 27 through the park will be renamed Old LaFayette Road and its speed limit will drop to 30 mph. Pat Reed, the park’s superintendent, says construction of the project is right on schedule for the Oct. 12 opening. He said some minor cosmetic additions including trees, shoulder landscaping and signs will be added after the opening. “It’ll be ready to open by then,” Reed said. “There’ll be a few minor things that’ll need to be finished afterwards, but it’ll be ready for traffic.”

Reed said once much of the traffic along U.S. 27 is diverted onto the new four-lane artery at the park’s perimeter, visitors will enjoy a quieter and safer experience at the battlefield. “It’s going to be a very good addition to north Georgia in terms of moving traffic and a positive influence on economic growth in this area,” he said. “We’re very excited to finally be finishing the project. The bypass will fulfill the needs of helping us to protect the park and create a safe environment inside the park for the hundreds of thousands of visitors we get every year,” Reed said. “It looks like a win-win (situation) for everybody.” The Eastern Federal Lands Highway Division of the Highway Administration, Department of Transportation, the National Park Service of the Department of the Interior and the Georgia Department of Transportation collaborated on the road’s construction