Arvada Harvest Festival

Chickens and zucchini at the Jaycee Hall

The 101st Arvada Harvest Festival, September 11–13, 2026, fit inside one building: the festival’s meeting hall, the Arvada Jaycee Hall at 5640 Yukon Street in Olde Town. There was no parade. Visitors parked free in the transit Hub garage on Vance Street, a block away, or rode the G-Line commuter train to the Olde Town Arvada station. For many activities, admission was a donation of food or necessities. Everything collected went to the Redistribution Center and Mission Arvada.

The weekend opened on Friday evening, September 11, with “Harvest & Honor,” a food drive marking the 25th anniversary of September 11, 2001. Neighbors came to the hall between 5 and 7 p.m. to drop off donations. The organizers asked especially for the coming holidays: canned vegetables, gravy, stuffing mix, pasta, peanut butter and other shelf-stable foods, and no glass.

Saturday brought the Garden Harvest Fair. Gardeners carried in their largest ripe tomatoes, longest green onions, widest sunflowers, largest bell peppers and onions, longest carrots with the tops still on, longest chili peppers, and zucchini by size. A best-decorated-vegetable class rounded out the list. Children 12 and under had two categories of their own, largest zucchini and best decorated vegetable. All produce had to be homegrown, and entry was a donation. Judging began at 2 p.m., and first-, second- and third-place prizes went out at 2:30.

Sunday morning was billed as Urban Homestead Sunday. The festival described it as bringing “the Harvest Festival back to its agricultural roots with backyard chickens, gardening, preserving and simple urban homesteading ideas.” Owners brought birds to the hall in carriers, crates or harnesses for two contests. Best Dressed Chicken was judged at 10 a.m., under a rule that costumes had to let a chicken “see, breathe, walk and move comfortably.” Fluffiest Chicken followed at 10:30. Each contest paid $50 for first place, and winners were announced at 11. Earlier, from 9 to 10, a grab-and-go table offered ideas on dry soup mixes, container gardening, wildflower pollinators and backyard chickens. A donation bought a recipe card, a packet of wildflower seeds, or a handout titled “Five Easy Ways to Start Homesteading.”

A letter from the city manager

The festival had moved indoors because of a letter. On March 4, 2026, City Manager Don Wick wrote to the Harvest Festival and Parade Committee at the Yukon Street address. The City of Arvada, he said, would approve no special-event permits for 2026. It would also stop providing security, traffic management, barricades and other event services.

The letter followed a review of the 2025 festival by Police, Parks, Traffic Engineering, Streets, and Community and Economic Development. By the city’s count, more than 25 Police Department personnel had worked the 2025 event, and the city had absorbed about $40,000 in in-kind costs. The letter listed a series of problems:

• Barricades were moved without authorization.
• Emergency access was impeded.
• Alcohol fencing was breached.
• A medical response was delayed by barrier mismanagement.
• An unapproved car show was attempted.
• Festival representatives reportedly drove golf carts after drinking.
• Friday street closures cut business traffic in Olde Town.

The city’s public statement on the matter added that “the decision was not based on one incident or one individual.” It also said the city had not ruled out a future festival. A proposal for 2027 or later, however, would need a professional event organizer, a single accountable lead, full payment of operating costs, a different location or footprint, and specific consideration of whether a parade could safely occur.

The organizer is the Arvada Junior Chamber Foundation, Inc., doing business as the Arvada Harvest Festival, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. On its website it told the story from its side. It had hoped to secure a larger private-property site for 2026 and thanked the property owners who explored the idea. “Relocating an event of this size—with the space needed for a carnival, animals, activities, vendors, parking, and multiple days of events—is a major undertaking,” it wrote. It also cited rising event costs and the prospect of paid parking in Olde Town. The organizers said they would not pass substantially higher costs on to the civic clubs, schools, nonprofits and small businesses through parade and participation fees. “Instead of asking our community to pay more, we’re getting back to something simple: community, harvest and giving back.” The festival said it was still working toward a long-term home, “where we don’t have to reinvent and relocate the entire Festival every year.”

Class floats, a celery ribbon and a Senior Queen

The first Arvada Harvest Festival was held in 1925. Arvada High School took part: students marched in the parade and built class floats.

Produce was judged early. A newspaper clipping captioned September 13 or 14, 1940, shows Betty Lee Plumlee admiring the celery that won Vincent Lotito the blue ribbon, first prize, at the festival. The clipping is reproduced in the 1998 issue of Historically Jeffco, the Jefferson County Historical Commission’s magazine. The same issue carried an article titled “Growing Pascal Celery in Arvada.”

The high school kept a booth at the festival for decades. Over 15 years, the 1960s among them, Betty Tomlinson guided the parents, staff and students who worked it.

By 1984 the festival reached the Arvada Flour Mill. That August, the Arvada Historical Society announced it would sell its 1985 calendar, “Take a Nostalgic Look at Olde Arvada,” at $7, “at the Mill during Harvest Festival.” The same issue of The Arvada Historian reported that the North Jeffco Seniors Club, marking its 25th year, would enter a float in the Arvada Harvest Festival Parade on September 8, 1984. All of the club’s officers would ride on it with Inez Johnson as Senior Queen. Johnson had been one of the club’s original members, organized at the Dairy Malt Shop in the fall of 1959.