Hayden Harvest Festival

Straw bales stand stacked on the grass at Dry Creek Park, 513 S. Poplar Street in Hayden, on the afternoon of the Hayden Harvest Festival. The Town of Hayden calls the festival an annual, family-friendly celebration “in honor of the changing seasons.” The 2026 festival ran on Saturday, September 12, from 1:00 to 5:00 p.m., and admission was free. The town’s notices listed caramel apples, arts and crafts, games, a straw maze, live music, food trucks and a beer garden. The town calendar also listed pumpkins for sale. The afternoon is divided in two: family fun from 1:00 to 4:00, then adult fun from 4:00 to 5:00.

Bluegrass, the Lions and the Legion

The town puts on the festival with the Hayden Lions Club. A town board meeting reported on August 19, 2026, confirmed that partnership and filled out the rest of the bill. The Flat Tops, a bluegrass band, would play. FFA and produce vendors would sell, and the American Legion would serve the food. Members assigned the games and an apple buffet and arranged a hay ride with the Public Works department. According to that report, pumpkins were ruled too expensive at the time. The town’s own calendar listing still carried “Buy a Pumpkin” among the attractions.

At town hall the festival falls to Parks and Recreation. The department’s year also includes peewee wrestling, the Easter Egg Hunt, Hayden Daze, the Cog Run and Stokes Gulch Moto-X. The 2026 notices carried the names of Rhonda Sweetser, recreation director, and Sarah Stinson, arts and events director. The department says gifts from individual donors and local businesses keep admission to its community events free.

Face paint and a caramel apple bar, October 2022

The festival had moved to Dry Creek Park by Saturday, October 15, 2022, when the Steamboat Pilot & Today photographed it. In the pictures, Bryn Bowman, 3, crawls through a tunnel formed by stacked hay bales. Nick and Karla Persichitte help their children, Emory, 6, and Oliver, 4, up a pile of bales. Liam Farrell, 7, winds up to throw a bean bag at cornhole, and other visitors play tic-tac-toe with pumpkins and stones. Pumpkins “of all shapes and sizes” sit ready for the taking. Jude Schramm, 6, paints one, and Rylee Larson, 8, decorates another while wearing fox face paint. Julie Whitecotton paints faces, and Fenna Vantubbergen, 6, holds still for her. Mike Mueller mans a caramel apple bar laid out with candies for toppings, and Lachlan Martin, 5, eats a candy-covered apple.

A garden center on Industrial Avenue

Five years earlier the festival had another address. In October 2017 the Steamboat Pilot reported that Monica and Frank Case would host it for the seventh year. It would run from 2 to 5 p.m. on Saturday, October 14, at their gardening supply business, Case Enterprises, 821 Industrial Ave. A photo caption with the story names the hosts as Case Enterprise Flower & Garden Center and the Hayden Parks and Rec Board.

“I started it because I just wanted to do something safe and fun for the kids,” Monica Case told the paper. “It’s been getting bigger every year.” She credited her son JD, then 10, as the inspiration. “This is mainly his event,” she said. “I would have to say he’s the backbone of this.”

The 2017 program had pumpkin bowling, gourd painting, a straw maze, face painting, a caramel apple buffet, hot apple cider and a game called corny quarters. “Lots of sugar and candy,” Case said. “I just wanted it to be a place for kids to be free and have fun.” Admission was free. Pumpkins cost $5, and face painting carried a small fee. LiftUp of Routt County collected non-perishable food for its food bank at the gate. The paper reported that upwards of 300 people had attended in recent years. Some came from The Haven, Hayden’s assisted living home for adults 55 and older. “A lot of elders come from The Haven,” Case said, “and they participate.”