The 120th Mount Carmel Festival in Lowellville begins Wednesday

LOWELLVILLE —Wednesday night on Washington Street, the annual Mount Carmel Festival with literally go off with a bang.

The festival, which pays tribute to Lowellville’s Italian-Catholic heritage, begins at 6 p.m. Wednesday with a boccie tournament and ends Saturday evening. The culmination of Wednesday’s celebration will be the baby-doll dance at 10:30 p.m., which features 15-foot-tall papier mache dolls. A baby-doll dance will also take place at 10:30 p.m. Thursday and Friday.

Traditionally, villagers in southern Italy burned the dolls in effigy, which was supposed to purge the community of last year’s problems. Lowellville doesn’t burn the dolls. Instead, fireworks shoot out off the tops of their heads – hence, the bang.