GermanFest

GermanFest is held in downtown Syracuse over a weekend in October and sits on Nebraska’s official Walk to Unlock heritage marker route. Otoe County took heavy German immigration after the Homestead Act, and in 1876 Louis Schacht returned to Germany and is credited with persuading a hundred German families to settle in Nebraska; names like Kreifels, Lutjemeyer, Steinhoff and Buchholz are still common here. The contests are the real thing rather than decoration: Hammerschlagen, a nail-driving contest, and Masskrugstemmen, a beer stein-holding endurance competition, are both authentic Bavarian festival games. There is a two-block biergarten, wiener-dog races, folk dancing, a grand parade, an evening country concert and a Sunday car show. Phone 402-269-3242.