Coquille Riverdays

Skate night, a posse, and fireworks at ten

Coquille Riverdays fills downtown Coquille, in Coos County, on the first weekend in June. By the city’s account, events begin Friday evening and end with a fireworks show Saturday night. The city calls it Coquille’s biggest festival. The Coquille Valley Chamber of Commerce runs it, and First Community Credit Union presented the 2026 festival, held June 5 and 6.

The 2026 festival opened Friday with a free family skate night at the Coquille Community Building. Food trucks were open by lunchtime, and vendors sold artisan crafts and local services. That evening the Timberwolf Musicians played 1950s and 1960s music from six to eight. The chamber posted from the crowd: “Right now!!! Timberwolf killing it!!”

The parade stepped off at 11 a.m. Saturday. A week earlier the chamber had counted 30 entries “and climbing.” At the start, the Coos County Mounted Sheriff’s Posse pulled out early because the horses were nervous. The chamber caught the moment on video and posted it two days later. The Cramer Boys played the Main Stage from noon to two and again from three to five, back after a crowd-favorite turn the year before.

At the corner of Second and North Alder, the Kid’s Corner put up large inflatables. There was face painting, and squirt-gun battles ran between the pool and the Community Building. Students from Coquille High School Robotics volunteered to serve near the food court. A River Float also went onto the Coquille. The chamber’s notice for it showed the city’s public works director, Mark Denning, photographed at the float two years earlier under the made-up name “Rivertown Ranger.” Fireworks went up at ten Saturday night. The chamber billed them as the “First Firework Show on South Oregon Coast!”

Cars along First Street

On the Saturday, cars park along First Street. Since the mid-2020s they have belonged to the Coquille Police Department’s Cars and Cops show. The 2026 show was free and ran from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., with awards, raffles, food and music. First and second places went in eight classes, from Pre-40’s through 70’s, plus Jeep, Corvette and Modern American Muscle Cars. Other awards included Best in Show, Club Participation, and Most Likely to be Pulled Over. The city’s page for the show describes a fourth annual edition on Saturday, June 7, alongside a press release dated February 26, 2025.

Before the police took it up, the car show was run by the South Coast Cruisers. Rob VanSlyke, a founding member and president, dated the club this way: “Our first club meeting was in February 1988 at Frazier’s Bakery.” In 2011 the Cruisers held their 23rd annual show. That year more than 80 cars came, up from 60 the year before. Leon Brown, then the club’s president, gave some of the credit to the weather: “When it rains the night before, people make up their mind that they’re not going to show up.” The club had added a motorcycle and tractor show two years earlier. Downtown shops stayed open, and spectators wove between the antique shops and the antique cars.

Brown said the merchants who sponsored the show kept it going. In thanks, he let 13 of them each give an award to a car of their choosing. “They pick out the one that they like for whatever reason,” he said. “Maybe they had their first date in one of those, maybe their dad loved that car.”

By 2018 the Cruisers’ Rendezvous Show & Shine had reached its 30th year. That year 95 cars lined Adams Street, visitors voted on favorites, and the club handed out 28 awards. Brenda Stevenson, who had lived in town about 14 years, came each year with her family. “It’s just been getting bigger and bigger,” she said. “I like seeing all the old cars and thinking back on years past.”

The Gay ‘90s and the Sawdust Theatre

For most of its life the festival was the Gay ‘90s, a celebration that turned the town back to Coquille in the 1890s. “Some say the celebration is a century old. That’s probably not true,” The World reported in 2011. That year Bernice Sanders sat behind her table at the Gay ‘90s craft fair and dated it herself: “It started when I was in high school. It has been 39 years this year.” The celebration began as a way to promote the Sawdust Theatre and open its season. The World noted in 2011 that it still did both. The Sawdust Theatre appears on the 2026 sponsor list.

The counts do not agree. A 2005 photo caption called the 2004 celebration the 37th annual. A 2009 notice called it “a three-decade tradition.” KCBY reported 2013 as the parade’s 40th year, with about 2,500 people expected. The same 2009 notice said the Gay 90s Celebration was “formerly known as River Days.” For 2026, the city described Coquille River Days as paying homage to “an event that started many decades ago.” It suggested themes of “all things 1890s, Americana, and the Coquille River.”

Spud feeds, couch dresses, and a dachshund

Through the 2000s the program ran from breakfast to evening. In 2005 the theme was “Ragtime.” A Friday street dance filled the parking lot in front of the Community Building, and a spaghetti feed raised money for the high school cross-country team. Saturday began with the Kiwanis breakfast and the Rotary’s Coquille River Run at Sturdivant Park. The parade left Coquille Valley School at ten and followed Central Avenue into downtown. The Chadwick Lodge served a spud feed of four kinds of potatoes. A 4-H petting zoo stood at Second and Alder, the corner the Kid’s Corner used in 2026. Bob Ley, the Sawdust Theatre’s longtime pianist, played ragtime with Greg Stevens. The band Solid Brass played Ernie’s Barn, with the barbershop quartet Class Distinction filling the gaps between sets. At three the Rotary auctioned an American Kennel Club-registered male dachshund puppy. The car cruise ran from six to eight on downtown streets.

The 2009 program added a crawfish boil and beer garden at Fat Tuesday’s Mardi Gras Grill. A new dog park opened at Fifth Street Park with a “Dress up Your Dog” contest. Frosty West’s “Solid Brass” band played, and a painting by Tom Aiken went to auction. That year a costume contest still paid $100, $50 and $25 prizes.

By 2011 the costume contest had stopped. Doris Hutcheson, a former chamber president, said, “That has sort of faded away now.” Nancy Wilson walked the street in calico. “It used to be more ladies in town would put on their 1890s couch dresses,” she said. Only four horses joined the parade that year because of the horse virus. Parade organizer Darlene Andrews still had her verdict: “Everything was on time.” The theme was “Classic Coquille.” The Bible Baptists loaded a trailer with logs and old-time logging equipment. “The kids had a lot of fun sitting in the back with the old equipment,” said pastor Bruce Berkins.

In 2018 the theme was “Roll Back in Time: Transportation Through the Years.” The day included a cardboard boat race and a watermelon-eating contest. Boy Scout Troop 314, the Coquille Martial Arts group and the Coquille High School marching band joined the parade. Bruce Parker, that year’s Citizen of the Year, called it the biggest event the city ran. “I really like the community coming together,” he said. Mayor Kathi Simonetti said, “I just love the people and the kids that come out.” The Sawdust Theatre closed the night with a live performance of “Ding, Dong, Dell, who Threw Granny in the Well?”