Montevallo hosts 6th annual Tinglewood Festival

MONTEVALLO, Ala. (WIAT) — Montevallo’s sixth annual Tinglewood Festival, a festival celebrating the art of woodworking, was held Saturday in Orr Park.

The festival is named after Tim Tingle, who is known for carving the trees in Montevallo’s Orr Park. In 2024, it featured 70 booths, a car show, chainsaw exhibition and petting zoo. The Parnell Memorial Library had a booth where visitors could sign up for library cards in honor of Library Card Sign-Up Month, which takes place in September.

“Today, it’s good weather, and a lot of people like to see good wood carving and all these crafts that are here,” Tingle said. “Some people are here for the car show, and there are just a lot of things that bring people out. I like to see people out in the park like this enjoying it.”

At Tingle’s booth, visitors could buy golf ball carvings and miniature versions of the Orr Park tree carvings.

Courtney Bennett is the executive director of Montevallo Main Street, one of the organizations that runs the festival. She said that people come from all over the state to visit the Tinglewood Festival.

“One of the things that’s so special about Tinglewood is that it’s an all-woodworking festival,” Bennett said. “Montevallo is known for our arts community, so that’s a big focus of what we do with Main Street, promoting the arts and encouraging people to come visit our downtown. Tinglewood fits right into that because we are celebrating the arts. We are increasing tourism. I think the fact that it’s exclusive to that one medium — to wood — really makes it unique.

Bennett said the festival gets bigger every year.

“We have thousands of people come to the park on this day, and I just love that we’re doing something to promote the arts in Alabama and to promote Alabama makers,” Bennett said.

It was University of Montevallo student Andrew Wilson’s third year attending Tinglewood Festival. Wilson said the festival highlights more than just Montevallo’s arts community.

“You look, and you see everyone coming together. It’s like the capstone of the Montevallo cultural experience,” Wilson said. “A little snapshot of this very unique town with its own demographics and composition. It’s like the culmination of everything that this town is.”

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