RANGELEY – Bethel Belle, Litchfield Pippin, Winn’s Russet, Bailey Golden and Aunt Judith – those were some of the early apples in Maine. Rangeley’s apple history will be featured when the Rangeley Lakes Region Logging Museum holds its 13th annual Apple Festival from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 7, at the Church of the Good Shepherd, Main Street.

A beef stew luncheon will begin at 11 a.m. Klara Haines and other volunteers will also serve up hot dogs, sandwiches and apple desserts.

Inside the church, all kinds of homemade baked goods made with apples will be for sale, including pies, breads, jellies, muffins and cookies. Crafts from throughout the region as well as a white elephant table will fill the church undercroft.

Frank and Audrey Stevens of Strong will bring their wood crafts, knit goods and homemade doughnuts and breads. Margaret Yezil of Oquossoc will offer her creations, such as placemats, toy moose and Christmas items. Scotty’s Ceramics will also offer wares.

Crafters from the Kingfield area will bring quilts and afghans; others have promised apple-inspired cookie cutters and pot holders. The Rangeley Logging Museum will offer their publications, “Logging in the Maine Woods: The Paintings of Alden Grant” and “Working the Woods,” as well as T-shirts and sweatshirts.

Chances on the museum’s July 2007 raffle items, including a handmade chain saw carving by Rodney Richard Sr. of Rangeley, will be for sale. Many other crafters will attend.

Outside the church, Harnden’s Harvest Hutch of East Wilton will offer apples and cider for sale. Richard Sr. and Rodney Richard Jr. of Pownal will rev up their chain saws to entertain guests as the father-son team bring a host of Maine animals out of blocks of white pine.

Logging museum volunteers will demonstrate apple pressing and cider making. Visitors are welcome to bring their own apples to be pressed. The apple press, owned by Bill and Margaret Ellis, points to part of Rangeley’s apple history: present, and past.

“We keep the press outdoors by the driveway of our house,” Bill said, “and people can come by and use it. That’s why we got it – for the community.”

Bill Ellis’ love of apples is generations long. From his family’s apples, his mother, Katharine, made dried apples, apple rings, apple leather, apple sauce, baked apples and cider.

And in years past, the family would walk up to their orchard, where Bill’s great-grandfather, Jerry, had lived, for the Jerry Ellis Apple-Picking Day. “Just whoever was around in the immediate family would go up there and pick apples,” Bill said, “and fill our backpacks. There must be 20 different kinds of apples up there.”

Admission to the Apple Festival is free. For more information, call Rodney and Lucille Richard at 864-5595.