Eaton Days

On the Friday morning of Eaton Days, the sidewalks of Town Square fill with chalk. In 2026 artists of all ages covered the concrete in color, and the Eaton Public Library judged their work in three divisions. At noon an art show of local artists’ work opened in the courtyard. Out at Eaton Country Club, golfers played the 25th Fighting Reds Golf Tournament the same day. The 2026 celebration ran from 9 a.m. Friday, July 10, to 8 p.m. Sunday, July 12, and Discover Weld, the county’s visitor site, listed it as the 65th annual. The Eaton Area Chamber of Commerce holds it on the weekend after the Fourth of July. Admission is free, and the Town of Eaton sends its own crew to ready the park before the festivities begin.

Friday night on Town Square

By evening the crowd moves downtown for food and drinks. The beer garden, which people once called “Beer Jail,” now spreads across the whole of Town Square Park. Poulsen Ace Hardware and General Store donated the T-posts that fence it. Inside the fence the town watches Eaton’s Got Talent and listens to live music. In 2026 the Heart n Soul Band opened the evening and Narrow Gauge followed. After the sun went down, light towers lent by Innovative Solutions and Sunstate Equipment kept the square lit for the dance.

The Friday dance has moved over the years. In 2015 it was a street dance on 1st Street between Elm and Maple avenues, running from seven to eleven, with Austin Wahlert performing. By 2023 it had moved to Town Square, 5 Maple Ave., with Liza Jo, Kiana Rae and the BoomTown Saints. “This year, we have two local artists that both got signed record deals with companies out in Nashville: Liza Jo and Kiana Rae,” Jamie Goodvin, chair of the chamber, said that summer. “Our big main event, BoomTown Saints, just released a pretty popular album.”

Saturday: balloons, a parade, a park

Saturday begins early. In 2023 the hot-air balloons were set to launch at 6 a.m. from the Eaton Area Community Center, 1675 3rd St., weather permitting. The county’s 2026 listing promised balloons rising high over the town.

The parade follows at nine. The 2023 route stepped off at 4th Street and Elm Avenue and ran to 1st Street and Juniper Avenue. In 2026 a Crop Air plane flew over around 9 a.m. to start it. Gary and Roxie Carsten led the parade as grand marshals, honored for their years of service to the town. Joe Metcalf received the Jim Hasty Award for more than four decades of that service. Entries are judged, and the 2026 awards went as follows:

• Best Vehicle: Fagerberg Farms
• Best Youth Entry: Eaton 10U Softball
• Best Music: the Eaton High School Band
• Best Tractor: Harsh Outdoors
• Best Civic Entry: Kennedy Dental

The afternoon belongs to the park. There is a vendor fair of local sellers, a petting zoo, a dunk tank, an obstacle course and bounce houses. In 2023 Goodvin also counted a talent show, a magic show, a pet contest, and UNC Athletics coming out to play games with children. “It’s very much like a family atmosphere where the kids can just run wild and play,” he said.

The Show and Shine Car Show, hosted by Jay’s Automotive, gathers classic cars, hot rods, trucks and custom builds. In 2026 it drew 117 vehicles, its largest count yet. In 2015 the car show stood at 2nd Street and Park Avenue, and the Studebakers parked by themselves at the high school bus barn.

Saturday ends with fireworks. In 2026 the Boom is Back Firework Show waited on full dark. Organizers told the crowd to watch for it around 9:15 to 9:30, and the official launch came at 9:25 p.m. In 2015 people watched from Eaton Middle School. “It’s just as good as the Stampede’s fireworks show,” Goodvin said in 2023. “We are proud of it.”

Sunday: hot dogs, hockey and the game of the 1860s

On the Sunday of the 2026 celebration, Can’t Dance Bar held its hot dog eating contest. The champion ate 9 hot dogs in 8 minutes. Among the last events of the weekend, the Eaton Police Department and the Eaton Fire Department traded badges and turnout gear for hockey sticks and played each other. The police won in 2026.

Other Sundays have started with a pancake breakfast. In 2015 it was served from seven to ten at the Town Park South Pavilion, and in 2023 the fifth annual Dirty Dog 5K was run the same morning. The vintage baseball game came in the afternoon.

In July 2015, at the Eaton High School diamond, the Eaton Reds Vintage Baseball Team played its third annual game against the Colorado Vintage Baseball Association’s Denver and Rio Grande Reds. Both sides wore red uniforms. Roger “Digger” Hadix of Colorado Springs, who played for the visitors, called it a “gentlemen’s game” and pointed to the team’s historically accurate red bow ties. Bruce “Old Hoss” Foster, the association’s commissioner, gathered the Eaton players beforehand to explain the rules. The rules had kept changing through the 1860s and 1870s, so the association had chosen the versions it felt were truest to the game.

“It’s so different than modern baseball,” Foster said. A ball caught on one bounce counts as an out. Chad Kuskie, the Eaton pitcher and an Eaton Days committee member, said that rule was the hardest for players to learn. “It relies a lot on the pitcher’s spin on the ball and makes it harder to hit,” he said. Batters try to keep the ball low. A runner may kick or slap at a struck ball, so long as he does not hit a fielder or touch it after a fielder has. A spectator who catches a ball may hand it to the fielder of his choice. “A few other rules didn’t stay in vogue,” Foster said.

Every Eaton player, Kuskie said, owned a business in town or had some tie to one. “It can be really small one minute and then there’s a turn of the pitch and a swing of the bat and the whole game changes,” said Brad Meissinger, the third baseman. Eaton lost, 12 to 11. “In the ninth inning we were just a bit short,” Kuskie said. “Cody Schmitt and Doug Preston made a couple diving plays that were pretty spectacular and everybody contributed with hitting and scoring.”

The county describes the celebration as ending with an outdoor worship service. In 2015 it was held at 6:30 p.m. in Town Park, under the trees.

Farmer’s Appreciation Day and the pit

The celebration began as Farmer’s Appreciation Day, a thanks to the farmers who sustained the community. The Greeley Tribune reported in 2023 that the town takes its name from Benjamin Harrison Eaton, a pioneer of irrigation who helped bring water to the dry prairies of the region. Many of the farms around the town still depend on his irrigation systems. The Tribune, citing Kiddle.com, says the town was first settled in the 1880s and that its founder later served as governor from 1885 to 1887. Eaton was incorporated on Dec. 5, 1892.

The Tribune also reported, in 2015, that a traditional underground barbecue pit had been part of Eaton Days since 1956. That year the cooks were seasoning 800 pounds of rump round roast to slow-cook in the ground. The 2015 schedule also listed a Lions Club barbecue on 1st Street, a Sundowner’s garage sale at Town Hall, an open house at the AJ Eaton House Museum, and a scavenger hunt through local businesses. Rebecca Proctor, the committee chairwoman, expected nearly 9,000 people and more than 90 vendors. “We take over this town,” she said. “Our little town nearly doubles in size.”

The celebration has sometimes taken a theme. In 2023 it was “Welcome to Title Town USA,” honoring the high school’s state championships, among them 14 in baseball, three in football and two in wrestling. The theme also honored professional players from the town: Austin Ekeler, Trent Sieg and Mitch Unrein. “All of this is quite extraordinary for a town this size,” said Wesley LaVanchy, the town administrator.

The parade’s grand marshals in 2022 were Jack and Marian Cazer. Jack was born in Eaton in 1930 and graduated from Eaton High School in 1948. He served three tours in Korea on the destroyer USS Kidd and married Marian Wilson while still in the Navy. The couple moved back to Eaton in 1956, the year the Tribune gives for the first underground barbecue. He farmed and drove in the trucking business until he retired at 80, and he died at home in Eaton on August 11, 2025, at 95.