Cotton Days

Saturday on Telegraph Street

On Saturday, May 2, 2026, the day began on Telegraph Street with the Lion’s Club Breakfast and the Festive Parade, which started promptly at 9 a.m. after its entries had lined up on 300 East. The parade theme was “Land, Liberty & Legacy: Built by Hands. Preserved by Heart.” From the street the crowd moved into Veterans Park, at 75 East Telegraph, for Cotton Fest. The park held food trucks, vendor booths, games, bounce houses, and a children’s entrepreneur market.

The main stage in the park was sponsored by SIRQ Construction and cost nothing to watch. The 2026 bill listed the Washington City Band, Tuacahn performers, Siva Pasefika Polynesian dancing, Encore Performing Arts, Anna, Elsa and Kristoff from Frozen, the Utah Arts Academy Band, Frank Bright the Magician, and the G Bar C Family Band. Near West Telegraph and North Main, Confetti Balloons gave tethered hot air balloon rides that lifted riders 80 to 100 feet above the celebration. The rides were ticketed and space was limited. The same Saturday also held a classic car show, a tractor pull, and historical tours of the city.

Cotton Days is run by Washington City and is free. It takes place each year in the last week of April or the first week of May. The 2026 edition ran from April 29 to May 2, with events on the Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday before the Saturday downtown. The opening event was a Kids Jam Session on Wednesday evening at the Washington Wheels Park. Local experts taught children riding tips and tricks, and each child could get a T-shirt and a treat while supplies lasted. The city’s notice for it read “Bring a helmet!”

The week also included an original musical, “Side by Side: Arthur Paxman and the Old Gym,” staged in Heritage Hall behind the museum. The city described it as based on a true story from the town’s past. All four showings sold out. On April 30 the Cotton Days Committee added “just a couple more rows of seating” for people who had asked for tickets.

A drone show over the ball fields

The 2026 grand finale was the city’s first drone show, held at the Washington City Community Center at about 9 p.m., once it was dark. The city asked people to bring blankets and lawn chairs and promised “hundreds of dazzling lights” taking shape in the sky. The drones flew above the ball fields. The city named three best places to watch: the Washington Elementary School field, the library parking lot, and the Community Center parking lot. Music for the show was broadcast on 94.3 FM. Later the city’s Cotton Days page had one line under “Events”: “That’s all for now, see y’all next year!”

Rodeos, softball, and an Ironman breakfast

The festival has changed in length and content over the years. Cotton Days 2013 ran from April 26 to May 4. It began with a youth foam dance at the Historical Museum, held by the Washington City Youth Council at $10 a head, with the money going to grad night at Desert Hills and Pine View high schools. The next morning had a 5K Family Fun Run through downtown, then the parade on Telegraph Street. In Veterans Park that day were Cotton Fest, relay races, Pioneer Games, the car show, and the tractor pull, and the night ended with Rise of the Guardians shown in the park.

The rest of the 2013 week included these events:

• Past mayors honored at the Historical Museum, followed by an Images of Faith Fireside and a presentation by Lynne Clark.
• A Western-style party for the Community Center’s fifth anniversary.
• Barrel racing and team sorting at Millcreek Ranch.
• An ice cream social.
• A youth fishing derby at Razor Ridge Fishery.
• A Dusk ‘Til Dawn softball tournament.
• On May 4, an “Ironman Breakfast” on a vacant lot north of Interstate 15. The city council served it free to residents who came to cheer on the Ironman St. George athletes, and a junior rodeo followed at Millcreek Ranch.

In 2014 the celebration ran for two weeks, April 25 through May 9, with 16 events. St. George News reported that it opened with a desert cleanup, in which volunteers worked with city staff, at 8 a.m. on a Friday. The 5K came the next morning. The paper noted that 82 people had run it the year before, in a race dedicated to the Boston Marathon runners and to those who lost their lives. After the run, the Washington Utah Lions Club served breakfast, and then the “Feels Like Home” parade started on Telegraph Street at 9 a.m. A fishing derby and a golf tournament were also on that year’s schedule.

The tractor pull has stayed on the program. St. George News photographed it on April 30, 2016, and in 2023 it was held in a vacant lot at the corner of 100 West and 100 North. The paper wrote that the air “will be filled with the rich smell of petroleum distillate” as enthusiasts competed for the title of strongest motor. The same 2023 Saturday included a Heritage Show of local cotton spinners and weavers at the Relief Society Hall on West Telegraph. That weekend closed with a Historical Society Fireside, where historians and relatives of pioneer families told stories of pioneer-era women.

Mayor Kress Staheli presented the 2023 festival as a way for new residents to learn the city’s heritage and meet their neighbors. In his monthly newsletter he wrote: “Cotton Days is a wonderful opportunity to celebrate our shared history and the strength, sacrifice and spirit of those who came before us, and those here today.”

Malinda Covington in bronze

St. George News has stated the festival’s purpose in two ways. In 2014 the paper wrote that it recognizes the founding of Washington. In 2023 it wrote that the festival is held in memory of the city’s early struggles to farm cotton in the desert. The 2023 week, April 24 to 30, opened at 5 p.m. on a Monday at the Old School Museum, 25 East Telegraph. That evening a bronze statue of the pioneer settler Malinda Allison Hunt Kelley Covington was unveiled.

The statue was made by the bronze sculptor Jerry Anderson. It became the first female figure among several male sculptures in the park that honors the city’s founders. Youth council leader Carmen Snow told the paper that the Washington City Youth Council had raised $10,000 toward it on its own. She also credited Priscilla Cahoon, a former Washington County historian, with having “planted the seed” for the monument before she died at 97 of COVID-19 complications. “They wanted the Malinda Covington statue to represent all of the hardworking pioneer women,” Snow said. “Because they were the helpmates for the men — they really were.”

Malinda was born in Kentucky in 1815 and was baptized into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1843. According to genealogy records cited by the paper, she and her first husband, Milton Kelley, were called to join the Mormon Battalion. She worked as a laundress, and on February 7, 1847, she gave birth to a daughter, Malinda Catherine. Women of the battalion cared for the two of them until they returned to Utah the following July. Kelley died on November 4, 1847, while stationed in Pueblo, Colorado. Malinda later married a widower, Robert Dockery Covington. She adopted a Native American child and raised her daughter along with the living Covington children. At the church’s General Conference in Salt Lake City in April 1857, the Covingtons were named among the first 28 families called to produce cotton in Washington County.