Covered Wagon Days

Saturday on Grande Avenue

The 2026 Covered Wagon Days in Del Norte began at 6 p.m. on Friday, July 31, with the Veterans Dinner and Auction. It was served family-style at $15 a person: pulled pork sandwich, potato salad, coleslaw, chips, dessert and a drink. The money goes to San Luis Valley veterans and to the Homelake Veterans Center in Monte Vista. CWD Inc., the nonprofit that runs the festival, describes a family-oriented multi-day event “which helps benefit local veterans and businesses.” By its own account it depends entirely on the generosity of the community.

Saturday, August 1, started at the High Valley Community Center. The Val Alto Pancake Breakfast was served there from 7 a.m. for runners, parade crews and early visitors. At the same hour the Bee’s Knees 5K run and walk set off from the front of the building onto Del Norte’s back-country trails. At 8 a.m. the Del Norte Public Library opened its book sale, with proceeds going to library projects. A 2024 account recommended the sale for stocking up on books for the coming winter. By 9 a.m. show cars and classics were parked along North Park. The day before, the committee had put out a call: “Have a car, motorcycle... truck, bus... whatever you got we would love to have it at our carshow tomorrow.”

The parade went down Grande Avenue at 10 a.m. with floats, walking entries, riders on horseback and motorized units. A 2017 account in the Monte Vista Journal describes the line as running “from covered wagons to hot rods, old folks to young folks, horses to motorcycles,” with “some candy or just a memory” for the people watching. In 2024 the avenue was closed from 10 a.m. until noon for it.

At 11 a.m. the crowd split. Some went to the Rio Grande County Museum for the annual ice cream social, a fundraiser toward preserving the Barlow and Sanderson Stagecoach and Stage Office. Others went to North Park, where food and craft vendors and a beer garden opened at the same hour. That evening the committee posted from the park: “We are still here in the park with cold beer and music!! Come on down.”

Sunday, August 2, began with a fly-in breakfast at 8 a.m. at the Kent Rominger Airport, served beside the visiting planes. At 10 a.m. Church in the Park held an outdoor service in North Park, along with a church breakfast. The 2026 theme was “America 250/Colorado 150: Moments that made us!”, marking the nation’s semi-quincentennial and the state’s sesquicentennial.

Biscuits at the Windsor Hotel

According to the 2017 Journal account, the parade opens each year with the Biscuit Throw, a re-enactment of an event said to have happened in Del Norte in the late 1800s. The Windsor Hotel put up miners when they came down from the mountains. Historians say the miners who had not yet found their gold used biscuits as wagers in their poker games. One of these games turned into a fight, and the miners started throwing biscuits, among other things, at each other. The fight spilled out into the street and shots were fired. “No one seems to know if anyone was hurt,” the Journal wrote, “but the story is always fun to tell.” In 2017 the throw was staged near Columbia Street on Grande Avenue at about 9:55 a.m., five minutes before the parade.

The miners came to Del Norte because of gold. Gold was discovered in the Summit District in 1870, and on September 13, 1873, P.J. Peterson and F.H. Brandt found the Little Annie Mine. The Rio Grande County Museum’s history of the town says Del Norte was thrust into a boom and built homes, businesses, schools and churches. It became the “Gateway to the San Juans,” an outfitting point for the mining districts, and the San Juan Prospector newspaper started there in 1874.

A tent east of Jack’s Market

Each edition takes a theme, and the program shifts with it. In 2017 the theme was “Preserving Our Western Ways,” and the celebration ran from Thursday, August 3, through Sunday, August 6. A big tent east of Jack’s Market on Highway 160 held several attractions:

• The San Luis Valley Antique Iron Club, with restored tractors and farm equipment and a tractor pull at 1 p.m.
• A mountain man encampment giving a Dutch oven cooking demonstration.
• The Seven Falls Native Dancers of Colorado Springs, a group that teaches native dance to each upcoming generation, performing at 2 and 3:30 p.m.

A wagon called the “Hayride into History” carried riders through town while a guide described the old buildings. The guide’s information was compiled by Louise Colville, the museum’s director, the late Mark Jones and others. At the museum, Colville gave a program on the Bunker Site. “The Bunker Site is a 16-acre area that was discovered several years ago by ranchers, Bob and Shirley Bunker,” she said. “It is located at the foot of the Sangre de Cristos on the east fork of the Old Spanish Trail. Excavation and research have revealed that the site may have been used for over a thousand years.”

In 2024 the theme was “The good, the bad and the ugly,” and the festival ran four days, August 1 through 4. Thursday brought farmers markets, the town’s Music in the Park, and Mercado Del Norte in the Del Norte Town Park. Kathy’s Fabric Trunk hosted its annual quilt show, and the museum opened an antique quilt and clothing show. The San Luis Valley Quilt Guild sold $10 items for its charity projects. After the parade, the Del Norte Fire Department held a barbecue lunch fundraiser. The 2025 edition, August 1 through 3, took the theme “Spirits of Del Norte Past.”

A Queen’s Ball at Castle Hall

A 2025 newspaper account by Lyndsie Ferrell traces the festival to 1972, when the town decided to host a bicentennial festival that grew into the present celebration. According to the Del Norte Prospector of August 19, 1972, that first year had a Queen’s Ball at Castle Hall, a pancake breakfast, a parade, a beard contest, flower displays and dancing in the streets. A group of men had platted Del Norte in 1871 using a mariner’s compass, and the town was incorporated on December 14, 1872.

From the beginning, Ferrell wrote, the town built the event around community and the coming harvest. It came to mark the turn from July into August. Each summer it fell just before school went back into session, with festivities like those of 1972. The pancake breakfast and the parade from that first year were still on the Saturday schedule in 2026.