Century Village Museum in Burton Village turned into a town out of a Jules Verne novel last weekend as the Northeast Ohio Steampunk Festival staged a two-day takeover.
Century Village Museum in Burton Village turned into a town out of a Jules Verne novel last weekend as the Northeast Ohio Steampunk Festival staged a two-day takeover.
This year’s event, held Aug. 24-25, was a hit, said museum curator Stefanie O’Connor.
“There were people of all ages and I think that the people who showed up enjoyed themselves because the comments that we got were, ‘We will be back next year’ or ‘This place is so beautiful,” she said.
The steampunk festival has been in operation for three years, with this year’s and last year’s held at Century Village.
Proceeds from festival support the museum, O’Connor said, adding last year, $7,000 of proceeds were donated to Century Village and used for lights, paint and window treatments to the Leanna Bond Building.
This year’s funds will also be used for building maintenance, such as roofs, gutters, windows and paint, she said.
Festival organizer Debbie Warren-Miller said her mission is to provide money to historic villages who act as hosts in order to help offset their costs and better preserve history.
“We began the event to raise funds to help historic villages with funding for new roofs, for painting, maintenance, things like that,” Miller said in a phone interview Aug. 23. “So, the money we raise from this event, we donate back to — this year, Century Village Museum in Burton — and we used them last year, as well, and will probably use them next year.”
The festival’s first year raised funds for a village in Jefferson, she said.
While history is important to Miller, Century Village also holds nostalgia for her.
“History is extremely important to us, and also, we grew up in Burton, and we spent a lot of our childhood and so forth in Burton at this village,” Miller said. “So, we wanted to do something to give back and help maintain the village and keep it a thing.”
This year’s steampunk festival expanded, Miller said, noting musical entertainment tripled from last year.
The village’s historic buildings were opened for tours during the event and a murder mystery dinner theater was hosted in the evening. Other events included Victorian tea and table tipping, a juggling class, a costume contest, a mustache contest, tea dueling and a gin tasting, as well as a large number of stalls selling everything from hats and fictional gadgetometers to artisanal soap.
The festival confirmed they will be returning to Century Village the weekend of Aug. 23, 2025. Other upcoming museum events include the Balloon Festival, Sept. 13-15, and the Apple Butter Festival, Oct. 12-13.
What is Steampunk?
Steampunk, both a subgenre of science fiction and a subculture spanning fashion, music, TV shows and books, draws upon the steam-powered days of the Victorian era.
Visually, the style incorporates Victorian silhouettes, top hats, goggles, clockwork elements, such as cogs and gears, and earthy metallic colors, such as brown and copper.
As a genre, one might expect to encounter fantastical airships or humanlike automatons. The term was coined in 1987 by author K.W Jeter in a letter to Locus magazine.
“Personally, I think Victorian fantasies are going to be the next big thing, as long as we can come up with a fitting collective term for (Tim Powers), (James Baylock) and myself,” he wrote. “Something based on the appropriate technology of that era, like ‘steam-punks,’ perhaps…”
A 2015 Writer’s Digest article listed prevalent real or imaginary 19th century technology driven by steam or clockwork and Victorian class and economic structures as staples of steampunk stories, along with strong senses of both fun and weirdness.
