Plenty of pumpkin fun: Mount Carroll Pumpkin Fest attracts Halloween lovers, shoppers

When summer fades, autumn begins to shine as the rich hues of a new season reach for the sky — treetops decked out in their fall finest: reds and oranges and golden yellows that treat us to a feast for the eyes before nature’s medley of colors hibernates under a blanket of white for the winter.

In Mount Carroll, though, the focus is on one color: orange — specifically, those plump pumpkins that conjure up thoughts of Halloween.

When October winds down, things begin to ramp up in Mount Carroll, where Pumpkin Fest packs a lot of fun into one day and visitors pack the streets downtown. This year’s event is 8 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 26.

The annual event promises plenty of family fun, from preschoolers riding on barrel trains and decorating pumpkins, to adults who want to try their hand at ax throwing. Concessions from local service organizations will be available and food trucks will be set up, and kids can take their Halloween costumes out for a test spin before trick-or-treat the following week.

The event is organized by the town’s chamber of commerce.

No matter what the weather winds up being, it doesn’t deter people from enjoying the fall festival, Pumpkin Fest planning committee chairwoman Diane Bausman said.

“It’s a nice buildup to Halloween,” Bausman said. “The kids have an extra chance to wear their Halloween costume on the Saturday before Halloween. We’re really hoping the cold holds off. Even when it’s cold, the little kids all come bundled up and still want to do stuff.”

Mount Carroll Chamber President Pam Sorg has seen families from her hometown and beyond make Pumpkin Fest an annual destination, and enjoys hearing stories from kids about their adventures, and first-time fest families who said they finally got to experience something they’ve been wanting to come to for a while.

“The whole thing is about the families that come and enjoy it,” Sorg said. “There’s something for the entire family. Some parents say they can’t get around to all of the activities with their kids — it’s that full — but they’re happy because there are a lot of kids there.”

Last year’s addition to the fun was a flash mob dance performance of costumed witches from the River Country Stomp line dancing troupe of Dixon. The witches will be back this year with two performances at the intersection of Main and Market Streets: The first at 10:15 a.m., before a costume parade with kids and pets which they’ll lead, and another at 11:45.

Ax throwing is one of two new attractions this year, with Rustic Ridge Axe Throwing of Oregon bringing its two-lane throwing trailer to town from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Also new this year is the Harvest Hustle 5K walk-run, which begins at 8 a.m. and takes walkers and runners all around town. The race begins and ends at the new Davis Community Center, which opened this spring.

The cost to participate is $25 (go to daviscommunitycenter.org to register), with prizes for top runners in each age group, and for the overall fastest man and woman; each runner also gets a “swag bag” of goodies.

The downtown streets will be lined with fall and Halloween decor, including an antique fire truck, that will provide a backdrop for photo ops. Plenty of smiles and cute moments happen all around them, Bausman said: “We encourage people to take lots of pictures and post them online, and I’m sure many Christmas cards have been created from it.”

Among the plethora of pumpkins are two giant ones that, together, weigh more than a typical grade school child, grown at McGinnis Melons in Thomson. How big, exactly? That’s for you to guess. Committee member Carol Frey helps coordinate the contest, where people write their guesses on slips of paper and await the announcement of the closest or exact guess at the end of the event; the winner gets $25 in Chamber Bucks for Mount Carroll businesses.

Some people take the challenge seriously, Frey said.

“It’s fun watching them when they are all serious about it,” Frey said. “Some of them will really look at them and study them. Some just put a guess down, but some are just very diligent about looking at them. It’s a lot of fun.”

Other free events for the children include story time sessions at the Mount Carroll Library after the costume parade, face painting and balloon artistry from 11 to 1, barrel train rides at the Main Street parking lot from 10 to 1, and a slew of games from mini pumpkin races, pumpkin painting, sports-related activities and more.

One of the final kids events of the day will really be a ball: At 1:30 p.m., someone in a boom truck will rise to the occasion near the Main and Market intersection and drop a load of ping-pong balls from the air, sending kids scampering to grab one that can be exchanged for prizes.

Mount Carroll musician Marques Morel will perform vintage country and delta blues music from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on the Carroll County Courthouse lawn.

That’s not all: Additional attractions and fun will be announced before the event on its Facebook page at “Pumpkin Fest! Mt. Carroll, IL.”

In another sign of the seasons, the weekend also is the final one of the season for the Mount Carroll’s weekly farmers market, which sets up along Market Street on the east section of downtown. The market has been around for more than 30 years, but has grown considerably in the past four, Sorg said, into one of the largest in northwest Illinois. More than 50 vendors are lined up to welcome the Pumpkin Fest crowd, many of whom had a lot of success during last year’s finale.

“It warms my heart to see all of the free activities and all of the vendors do so well,” Sorg said. “It really brings me joy after working so hard on it.”

Pumpkin Fest began in 2014, but is not the town’s first Halloween-centric event. During the 1990s and early 2000s, the town hosted October Nights during each weekend of the month with a walking cemetery tour at Oak Hill. Both the current and former event capitalized for several years on the October success of the Raven’s Grin Inn haunted house, which is still an attraction, but only open by appointment.

Bausman, who retired last year as executive director of the Polo-based Blackhawk Waterways Convention and Visitors Bureau for 20 years, has seen how town-wide events and festivals not only bring people to town, but also a lot of revenue for local businesses.

“I think it’s a nice way to showcase Mount Carroll,” Bausman said. “You can look at all of the people and everyone’s having a good time. We’re encouraging our businesses to be open and to offer things, and I think it’s a great way to get people into Mount Carroll.”