The Jeep is coming home to Butler in 2011.

Jack Cohen, executive director of the Butler County Tourism and Convention Bureau, announced a new Jeep Heritage Festival to be Aug. 11, 12 and 13, 2011.

He believes the event could attract between 5,000 and 15,000 Jeep enthusiasts in the first year.

Cohen said he and Sandy Gadzia, the bureau's director of sales, have been meeting with Downtown Butler, Mayor Maggie Stock, the Butler County Historical Society, car historians Lee Bortmas and Bob Brandon, and representatives of Chrysler about the festival.

The three-day event, which Cohen said he believes "in a couple years can easily become a weeklong event," will make the Butler Fair Grounds along Route 422 its main location.

"There we can have all the cars and after-market vendors for four-wheel vehicles, plus the four-wheel driving course," Gadzia said.

They also hope Chrysler will bring its newest line of Jeeps for display.

In Butler, Cohen said planners also will work on holding the world's longest Jeep parade for inclusion in Guinness World Records.

The city of Butler owns a Jeep, which was originally designed at the Pullman-Standard Plant where the Pullman Square Shopping Center and Pullman Square Business Park now sit.

Cohen said he hopes to feature that vehicle as well as a 1967 Vietnam War-era Jeep recently donated to the bureau. That vehicle is being rebuilt.

"Normally, as the tourism bureau, we help other organizations hold their events, but the Jeep is one, if not the biggest thing to come out of Butler County, and it's too big to just let this go without trying something," he said.

There are hundreds of Jeep events held across the country every year, but this would be the first in the actual birthplace of the Jeep.

Becky Smith, Main Street manager for Downtown Butler, said the international appeal of the Jeep "makes it a great way to market Butler."

In 2010, Smith said the festival organizers are going to spend the year educating Butler County residents, as well as those of the overall region, on the story of the Jeep and how it was born in Butler.

Brandon said Friday he hopes the festival will include an educational lesson that schools taught 10 years ago, in which large drawings of the original Jeep were passed out to students to color.

He said the lesson and the finished drawings helped show students and adults that the Jeep as it is known today looks almost identical to the one made in the Pullman-Standard workshop.

"This will be a wonderful event for the entire community," Smith said.