Heritage Day

At 8:30 on Saturday morning the free pancake breakfast opens in City Park, and it lasts while supplies last. At the 2026 festival, held September 19, it ran until 10 a.m., with Patrick Hesse playing live music. City Park is the oldest park in Evans. It has a large picnic pavilion, a playground, a small softball field, horseshoe pits, and shade from many large, mature trees, and it holds the morning half of Heritage Day.

At the same hour a 5K fun run and walk sets off from Riverside Park. The Greeley Tribune called the start of the day “a choose-your-own-adventure.” The race is presented by Balanced Movement, a Greeley yoga studio, and all proceeds go to Canine Community Heroes, a Northern Colorado nonprofit that helps train and support service and therapy dogs. Leashed, friendly dogs may run, one per person with proof of vaccination, and every registrant receives a bandana.

The parade and the park fair

The Heritage Day Parade steps off at 10 a.m. Recent parades show who takes part. In 2021 the parade carried bands from Greeley-Evans School District 6 and a contingent from the Evans Police Department, and the Evans City Council appeared in the 2024 parade. After the parade, food trucks, a vendor fair, and free family amusements filled City Park until 2 p.m. in 2026. In the Tribune’s account of the 2024 festival, Golden Street and City Park were where Evans residents gathered. “Bring the family, invite your friends and spend the day celebrating the community we call home,” a city Facebook post urged in 2026.

Evening at Riverside Park

After an afternoon break the festival moves to Riverside Park, a riverside tract with a 7-acre fishing lake, fishing docks, more than two miles of trails, ball fields, and many acres of undeveloped open space along the South Platte River. The city’s schedule opened the 2026 evening at 5 p.m. The Tribune gave 5:30, the hour it listed for a princess performance. There were food trucks, free family amusements, and a beer and spirits garden pouring from 477 Distilling, Crabtree Brewing Company, TightKnit Brewing, and Yetters Brewing Company.

Duey & Unbroken played from 7 to 8:30 p.m. The band is the project of Duey Weibel, who, the Tribune reported, has opened for Taylor Swift, Toby Keith, and Chris LeDoux and held a two-year residency in Las Vegas. The band plays ‘90s country hits. At 8:30 p.m. the fireworks went up over Riverside Park, and the day ended.

Latin and European roots, and a lost county seat

Evans has about 23,000 people and stands where the South Platte River meets the Union Pacific Railroad in Weld County. The city says Heritage Day is named for a heritage “built on a mix of Latin and European influences.” Murals by local artists cover many of the historic buildings in Old Town East Evans. The Tribune described the 2026 festival as a celebration of the city’s 157th year. No page in the record gives a founding year for the festival itself or names who started it.

Some of the town’s own past came up in planning for the 2019 festival. Lance Snow, the city’s communications and community engagement manager, found that Evans had once been the county seat before Greeley took it over. “Back in those days, they had really raw and unofficial ways of annexing territories,” Snow told the Tribune. “So there are some funny things that took place.”

A balloon in 2019, an empty year in 2020

The Tribune covered the 2019 festival as the city’s 150th anniversary. In 2019, for the first time since 2009, Heritage Day ran two days. On Friday, September 13, Riverside Park held a tethered hot air balloon, a beer garden, a community barbecue at $1.50 a plate, live music from the 6 Million Dollar Band, and fireworks over the river. The park had only reopened the year before, after a flood destroyed it. “So it’s really symbolic because we get to do it at the newly renovated and reopened part, which has sentimental and historic reasons,” Snow said. Saturday began at 8 a.m. with the 5K, the pancake breakfast, and the parade, followed by laser tag, a petting zoo, and bounce houses. Mayor Brian Rudy said that “at 150 years, there’s no other city in Weld County that’s done that.”

The 2020 festival was canceled because of COVID-19. Heritage Day returned on September 17 and 18, 2021, after more than 736 days, by the city’s count. “It’s been far too long, but this is great for the community,” Rudy said at the time. That year, JBS put on the Friday fireworks at 8:45 p.m., and the Evans Fire Protection District cooked the Saturday pancake breakfast in City Park.

By 2026 the festival had returned to a single Saturday split between the two parks. In 2024, Jen Baiamonte, the city’s recreation manager, told the Tribune: “Evans Heritage Day, to me, is our community-wide celebration. It’s a time for us to bring the community together. Celebrate our people and give them this nice day to enjoy each other’s company.”