During the month of October, the Mount Airy Museum of Regional History will be offering a multitude of activities that will appeal to a variety of interests.

For those who love wine and music, the museum is offering its Toast and Jam program on Friday night from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. The Jam, or music, will be offered by The Classix band, and the Toast, or wine, will be offered by Old North State Winery. The program will be held outside in the museum’s courtyard. The program is free to the public.

Wine tastings will be offered and wine will be sold by the glass and by the bottle. Toast and Jam is being sponsored by B&L Custom Jewelers.

For history buffs, the museum will be offering another session of its History Talks series on Saturday at 2 p.m. The talk will be presented by North Carolina Humanities Road Scholar, Ed Southern. He will give a talk about the “Race to the Dan - The Retreat That Won the Revolution.” Charles, Lord Cornwallis — the commander of the British Army in the South — built a bonfire in February 1781. Mustering his men from their camp at Ramseur’s Mill in the North Carolina backcountry, he ordered them to burn everything — creature comforts, extra rations, even their rum — all but the bare essentials, starting with his Lordship’s own baggage. Cornwallis meant to move fast to catch the ragtag Southern Department of the Continental Army and crush them in a final, decisive battle. When he heard what Cornwallis had done, General Nathanael Greene, his quarry and foe, is supposed to have said, “Then he is ours.” What followed was dubbed “the Race to the Dan,” when two armies raced each other across the North Carolina Piedmont in an effort that would lead, less than a year later, to Cornwallis’s surrender at Yorktown. Though a retreat by the Continentals, the Race to the Dan would prove to be the undoing of Cornwallis’s army and the British “Southern strategy” to defeat the American rebellion.

History Talks are free to the public and will be held in the Museum Conference Room. The project is made possible by a grant from the North Carolina Humanities Council, a statewide nonprofit and affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Matt Edwards, executive director of the museum, said he scheduled the event during the Autumn Leaves Festival to capture some of the thousands of people who will be just outside the museum’s doors on Saturday.

The museum also will be raising money during the festival by operating a parking lot where the old Shelton Plumbing building was on Virginia Street.

“You can’t park much closer to the Autumn Leaves Festival than that,” said Edwards. “And, the money raised will go to help fund museum programming.”

For Halloween lovers, the museum’s annual Boo Bash Halloween Party that has become a staple event at Old North State Winery will be held on Oct. 27 from 8 to 11 p.m. Dana and Evan Olsen will be providing the music for that event. Tickets are $20 per person.

For those who are interested in learning about local history while learning about the town’s notorious ghosts, the Historical Mount Airy Ghost Tours will run every Friday and Saturday night through the end of October. Tours start at Old North State Winery. Tickets are $10.

The Oakdale Cemetery tours are still ongoing. They are held on Saturdays at 10:30 a.m. Tours cost $10 per person.

For those who are into fitness, the museum is hosting a 5K run at Round Peak Vineyards on Oct. 27 at 9 a.m.

Those who are into “Bond, James Bond” will get a kick out of this year’s Casino Royale at Cross Creek Country Club. This is the museum’s big fundraiser for the year. Edwards said the event was well received last year and he’s anticipating a big crowd for this year’s event as well. Tickets are $65 per person and that includes dinner, drinks and a night of gaming.

There will be a drawdown for a chance at $6,000. Tickets for the drawdown are $100 each, and for those who purchase those tickets, admission to the event is $40. The big winner of the casino games will win a free drawdown ticket. Drawdown ticketholders are not required to attend the event.

The event begins at 6:30 p.m. on Oct. 19.

During the event, there also will be a silent auction for items such as an iPad, a GPS unit and a vacation condominium just minutes from Walt Disney World.

Tickets for the Boo Bash and Casino Royale are now on sale at the museum. Tickets for any of these events can be purchased by calling the museum at 786-4478.

Contact Mondee Tilley at mtilley@heartlandpublications.com or at 719-1930.