The new exhibit currently on display at Plains District Museum features the community bands of the early 1900s. Both the Broadway and Mayland communities had organized
bands during that time-period. Broadway was also home to the extremely popular Eddie Branner Orchestra organized in the 1930s. But the centerpiece of this exhibit and the
Timberville community in the early 1900s and again in the 1990s was its Brass Band performing on the magnificent Timberville Bandwagon. The original Timberville Band
began in 1879 and had fourteen band members by 1914. About that time, it was reorganized and directed by the local dentist Dr. W. B. Fahrney.
About 1900 the town of Timberville purchased a former circus wagon abandoned in New Market and converted it into the town’s band wagon. For the next forty years, the Band climbed aboard the Bandwagon, pulled by horses most often belonging to band members, to perform concerts and march in parades throughout the Valley.
The band ended in the early 1940s but, through the efforts of Priscilla Blosser Rainey, it was revived in 1995. In 1999, Mr. McCauley, then Mayor of Timberville and founder of the Plains District Museum, officially retired the Bandwagon in the Museum.
For more detailed history of all the community bands in our area, we encourage you to visit the Museum. The exhibit Here Comes the Band includes photographs of the
original bands, names of band members and many of the instruments and music that they played as well as original uniforms.
It will remain on display through December 2026.