Elephant Garlic Festival

On the grounds of Jessie Mays Community Park in North Plains, Oregon, every food vendor at the Elephant Garlic Festival must offer at least one garlic-forward dish. At the 28th annual festival, August 7, 8, and 9, 2026, Blue Elephant served fried oyster baskets with garlic fries and a lemon garlic shrimp basket. Rice Plate set garlic fried rice beside its yakisoba noodles. The elephant-ear and funnel-cake stand added garlic bread. Mita Ice sold garlic ice cream next to Italian ice and chocolate-dipped cheesecake. The Knights of Columbus served garlic chicken, garlic mashed potatoes, and garlic green beans, and the American Legion roasted corn over a fire. Loughridge Farm sold the garlic itself. The festival’s food page says the aroma “fills the air.”

Garlic at every booth

The craft booths sell garlic in jars to take home: habanero pickled garlic, parmesan garlic popcorn, nuts, sauces, and garlic-infused olive oil. Garlic Gourmay sells pickled garlic, pickled olives, seasonings, and Bloody Marys. Among the garlic sellers are potters such as Hogwash Pottery and Make Mine Pottery, NW Woodturned Art, Davis Brothers Metal Art, Aviation Leather, gemstone dealers, bag makers, a henna artist, and the North Plains Chamber of Commerce. Inside the Jessie Mays Community Center, the Friends of the North Plains Library hold a book sale each day of the festival. Admission is always free.

Hay bales and the evening stage

Music runs as long as the grounds are open. On Friday it plays from noon to 11 p.m., on Saturday from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m., and on Sunday until the 4 p.m. close. The festival books local bands in rock, blues, folk, and country, with headliners on Friday and Saturday nights. In 2026 Jessie Leigh closed Friday after the Cory Johnson Duo, Boneheads, Eddyville, and Stormy Creek Co. Slicker closed Saturday after Rand Brown, Michael Opperman, 45th Parallel, and Jacquie Roar. On Sunday the NP Christian Band opened at 10 a.m. and Bootleg Ridge finished the afternoon. Tom Mann played Sunday late morning. The festival’s history page also lists him among past performers, with Jon Koonce, Jennifer Lynn, Norman Sylvester, Flexor T, Rodeo Rose, and Concrete Cowboys.

The same page describes the evening crowd: under the night sky, people “either sit upon hay bales or pull up a chair.” A beer and wine garden keeps the same hours as the food booths. In the year of the 24th festival, a city feature reported that Russ Sheldon of the Knights of Pythias coordinated the beer garden and that the lodge’s members set it up and took it down. The organizers post their rules plainly: “NO ANIMALS OF ANY KIND ARE ALLOWED This includes reptiles.” There is no outside alcohol and no smoking or vaping. The city’s code of conduct permits service animals.

Saturday on Main and Commercial

The parade starts at 10 a.m. Saturday. It runs down Main Street and Commercial Street and ends at the festival grounds. Police, a color guard, scouts, and motorcycle law officers march in it, along with grand marshals, horses, farm equipment, and floats from local businesses and school groups. According to the history page, the parade has grown to include a Garlic Queen and King. Children still line the streets to collect free candy and garlic cloves, ride bikes, march with the scouts, and wave from floats “made with straw bales and bunting.”

Fire Station 17 holds an open house that morning. At 11:30 the PEAK Annual Car Show opens on the grounds, with classic cars and trucks parked beside modern vehicles. The Events Association’s list of highlights also names OMSI.

North Plains Days and a farmer’s suggestion

The festival began, its organizers write, as “a humble community gathering during North Plains Days.” The history page tells the founding two ways. It says the festival was “officially born in 1998,” inspired by a local farmer whose garlic fields stood for the farming heritage of the country around town. Further down, the same page says that as the event grew, a local farmer suggested the elephant garlic theme, “Thus in 1997 the North Plains Elephant Garlic was born.”

The North Plains Chamber of Commerce ran the festival in its early years. In 2012 a group of longtime organizers formed the North Plains Events Association, a nonprofit, and took it over. The Association now owns the festival and runs it under contract with the City of North Plains. The festival website and its social media go by “funstinks,” and the Association calls the site Fun Stinks. The history page records that in 2010 the festival was named “the 10th Best Elephant Garlic Festival in the World,” and that in 2024 it received an Ovation Award from the Oregon Festivals and Events Association.

Two hundred fifty volunteers and a garlic bulb

A city feature written for the 24th festival counted more than 250 volunteers each year. Sherrie Simmons, president of the Association, coordinates the art vendors and marks out the booths and vendor parking on the field. She moved to North Plains in 1998. Cindy Smith scheduled the volunteers. Stewart King, the Association’s treasurer since 2012, handles the fencing and the city’s signs. Brenda Lyons organizes the parade and the North Plains Christian Church volunteers who clean the tables and haul the garbage. Terry Burns ran the attendee parking lot on Commercial Street. The city’s Public Works crew mows around the grounds and the St. Edward Catholic Church field used for vendor parking. Mayor Teri Lenahan, the feature says, “jumps in to help where ever it’s needed.” In June 2026 the festival thanked James, Wesley, Barry, Lloyd, and Michael for putting up the festival sign on Highway 26. Travelers from Portland follow that highway to Exit 57 at Glencoe and cross the train tracks to the parking area.

The festival mascot is Stinkee, a garlic bulb. A city profile of Stewart King noted that his son would wear the Stinkee costume at the 23rd festival. The next year’s feature named Evan King as the mascot “for the past few years.”

Patti Burns, vice-president of the Association, has coordinated the festival almost continually since 2003, first for the Chamber and since 2012 for the Association. Her in-laws bought the Loch Lolly Christmas Forest outside town in 1986, and she and her husband moved onto the farm in 2002 and took over its operation. “I started out by going to the elephant garlic festival in 2003,” she told the city, “and volunteering for a bit and just kept going!”