Drones, food trucks, vendors and a beer garden will come together on Belton’s Main Street on Friday and Saturday, May 29-30, to honor an axe-wielding prohibitionist and feminist with ties to Kansas City history. Key vendors include Broken Hatchet Brewing and Battle Axes on Main.
Events for Belton’s third annual Carry Nation Days festival are scheduled from 5 p.m. until 9 p.m. on Friday and from 9 a.m. until 9:15 p.m. on Saturday. Scheduled fun includes a lineup of local musicians including Tate Stevens, cake walks, foam parties, a kids tractor pull, and the crowning of Little Miss Belton 2026.
The festival will also include a Beer Garden hosted by Broken Hatchet Brewing. The brewery opened in 2021 and leans heavily into thematic elements of Nation’s story, primarily the hatchet imagery. Festival-goers will also have the opportunity to throw an axe for $10 courtesy of Battle Axes on Main.
Nation was an activist of the American temperance movement in the late 19th and early 20th century. Known as “Hatchet Granny,” Nation radically advocated for the prohibition of alcohol. She became famous for entering bars and taverns with a hatchet, singing hymns and smashing barroom fixtures and liquor bottles for the cause.
Most of Nation’s life and activism were spent in Kansas, where she died in Leavenworth in 1911. However, she had personal ties to Belton and Kansas City. Her parents were early settlers of Belton, and Nation spent most of her young adult life in the Kansas City area. Nation is buried next to her mother at Belton Cemetery.
Mary Cummings, a retired Belton teacher who works with the Belton Historical Society, is particularly excited for the festival. She remembers Nation’s story being told as she grew up in Belton, even creating a “Hatchet Granny” diorama in school.
Cummings added she is particularly excited about the drone show in the works for Saturday night, as Belton residents were asked to submit art for the drones to replicate in the sky. A special celebration for America’s 250th birthday is also planned, according to the city.
“I’m hoping it doesn’t rain,” Cummings said. “It makes for a nice event.”