Abstract:
During the last weekend of September, Mule Days is held in Benson. Conceived in 1949 by Garland McLamb, Mule Days is a four-day long festival designed for people to buy, sell, and pay homage to the mules. The festival is now in its twenty-sixth year and attracted over 50,000 people in 1974. Although North Carolina's mule population dwindled in the past, it has grown steadily in the last twenty years, spurred in part by Mule Days.