It's Candy Dance season

The sweet smell of cooking candy wafting through Nevada's oldest town means one thing: Candy Dance is coming.

Preparations to celebrate the 90th year since Genoans founded their alternative to taxation are under way.

Candy makers are producing candy for sale at the annual festival.

Begun in 1919 by Lillian Virgin Finnegan to raise money for streetlights, the event has grown from a dance and midnight supper, where the town ladies sold candy to raise money, to a two-day craft fair that attracts an estimated 30,000 visitors during the final weekend of September.

The town expects to have 300 booths rented in time for the Sept. 25-26 event.

The event also features a Sept. 25 dinner and dance at the Genoa Town Park on Nixon Street. Tickets are $30 for adults and $15 for children age 12 and younger. Purchase dinner dance tickets by Sept. 17 at the Genoa Town Offices, 2289 Main St., or 782-8696. Dance-only tickets are $15, also available at the door

Candy Dance is responsible for raising the lion's share of the town's budget raising more than $250,000. Money raised keeps town taxes low. Property taxes account for a small percentage of the town's budget.