Darwin Barker Museum Curator Max Walters will talk on the importance of the grape production belt to the region.

The 1891 Fredonia Opera House Performing Arts Center kicks off the fall installment of its Chautauqua County History Lecture Series on Thursday at 7 p.m., with Preserving the Lake Erie Grape Belt.

Chautauqua County is one of the more important agricultural counties in New York State, with a diverse farm production sector, a strong farm input sector and a significant food processing and value-added output economy. While the County has significant sales of cattle, vegetables, fruits, timber, and maple products, it is dominated by grape production.

With more than 30,000 vineyard acres, the Lake Erie Grape Belt is the largest grape-growing region east of the Rockies. It is roughly five to ten miles wide extending from the lake shore to the Lake Erie escarpment, which rises about 1000 feet above the 600 ft elevation shore of Lake Erie. Most of the grapes raised here are of Concord variety, which are native to America. Other varieties include Niagara, Catawba, Delaware, Elvira, Seyval Blanc, and Chardonnay.

Darwin Barker Museum Curator Max Walters will talk on the importance of this grape production belt to the region and how the Museum is preserving the legacy of grape production and processing with its online archive.

Attendees also will view a never-before-seen promotional movie for Bedford Food Products Co. of Dunkirk, later to become part of Red Wing.

Admission to the lecture is free, with donations gratefully accepted. Opera House programming is made possible, in part, by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature. Free admission events are supported by the Ralph Wilson Jr. Arts & Cultural Initiative as administered by the Community Foundation of Greater Buffalo.

The 1891 Fredonia Opera House Performing Arts Center is a member-supported not-for-profit performing arts center with a mission to “present the performing arts for the benefit of our community and region … providing access to artistic diversity … and high quality programming at an affordable price.” It is located in Village Hall in downtown Fredonia. For a complete schedule of events, visit www.fredopera.org.