The 46^th Annual Ambridge Nationality Days Festival will be held May 13, 14, and 15, 2011 along the longest main street in Beaver County, Ambridge, Pennsylvania’s own Merchant Street. Ambridge, an United States Preserve America Community, has been home to the Nationality Days festival, since its origin in 1965. The event is held yearly and is hosted by the Ambridge Area Chamber of Commerce and sponsored by local and national companies, business owners, and corporations.

The event continues to be the largest event in Beaver County drawing crowds at times of over 40,000 to 50,000 people to the main streets of Ambridge. The festival is a heritage based festival featuring home cooked cuisine from local churches and organizations, local homemade heritage crafts and culture based entertainment for the entire three days of the festival.

A parade will be held on Saturday, May 14 which features local heritage organizations, county wide marching bands, local public service organizations, and so much more. “The amount of people this festival brings into our community is amazing. Many of the stores on the main street do their best business of the year in these three days.

This festival is a true asset to not only the Ambridge community, but the entire county”, stated Chamber Director, Jeremy Angus. “We are thirty minutes from “America’s Most Livable City”, this is a festival for not only this community, but for the entire region”, said Angus. The Ambridge Nationality Days Festival continues to grow. With 2010’s festival being one of the largest in the record books filled with more food then ever and beautiful weather, 2011’s festival is sure to be nothing short of just 2010.

Take a look around, enjoy, and join us for another great, “True Heritage Festival”.

Ambridge is a borough in Beaver County in Western Pennsylvania, incorporated in 1905 and named after the American Bridge Company. Ambridge is located 16 miles (25 km) northwest of Pittsburgh, alongside the Ohio River. In 1910, 5,205 people lived in Ambridge; in 1920, 12,730 people lived there, and in 1940, 18,968 people resided in Ambridge. The population was 7,769 at the 2000 census.

The town is near the location of Legionville, the training camp for General “Mad” Anthony Wayne‘s Legion of the United States. Wayne’s was the first attempt to provide basic training for regular U.S. Army recruits and Legionville was the first facility established expressly for this purpose.

The Harmony Society first settled the area in the early 19th century, founding the village of “Ökonomie” or Economy in 1824. Although initially successful, accumulating significant landholdings, the sect went into decline. By the end of the 19th century, only a few Harmonists remained. The Society was dissolved and its vast real estate holdings sold, much of it to the American Bridge Company, who subsequently enlarged the town and incorporated it as Ambridge in 1905.

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