San Luis Valley Potato Festival

At 8:30 on a Saturday morning in September, walkers and runners gather at Chapman Park in Monte Vista for the Tater Trot, the 5K that opens the San Luis Valley Potato Festival. The race page says the course is for all ages and fitness levels. Other announcements call it the Spud Run, or the “5K Tator Tot and Spud run.” Its proceeds go to the San Luis Valley Pediatric Diabetes Fund, which the race had supported with more than $40,000 by 2026. Jessica Bradshaw, assistant director of the Colorado Potato Administrative Committee, said the fund helps families of children with diabetes with travel and other costs, and that it recently helped doctors buy equipment for pediatric diabetes testing. “We were so excited to be able to help purchase this equipment and people always come out and support the tater trot event every year, so we appreciate that a lot too,” she said.

A day in Chapman Park

The 2026 festival was scheduled for Saturday, September 12, from 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. After the race, the day ran on in the park with craft and food vendors, music, kids’ games, bouncy houses, a rock climbing wall, live farm animals, a truck show, a motorsport stunt show, and narrated train tours. There was a chef demonstration, and there was the Famous Mashed Potato Dunk Tank. Freshly harvested Colorado potatoes were on hand.

The harvest is the reason for the date. Uncover Colorado describes the San Luis Valley as vast, with plentiful sunshine, mountain ranges all around, and a high-altitude atmosphere suited to potatoes. Heart of the Rockies Radio, citing the committee’s website, reported that the valley is the second-largest fresh potato-growing region in the United States and that more than 150 potato-growing families have lived there for generations. The committee, an alliance of the valley’s growers and shippers, runs the festival.

Growers in the chefs’ kitchen

The 2025 festival, held September 6, the Saturday after Labor Day, is the edition the record describes hour by hour. The San Luis Valley Community Band played at 11 a.m. The Colorado Gators brought a reptile zoo from 11 to 3. A Pro Chef Competition began at 1 p.m., and the Swoop of the Cranes Auction began at 3. Free kids’ games ran from 9 to 4, with bounce houses, a trampoline, and a trackless train in the park.

That year the chef demonstration became a competition. Bradshaw named the cooks: two chefs from Potatoes USA, a professional chef who owns a company called 5280 Culinary, and Chef Tim from the Windsor Hotel in Del Norte. Each was given a potato grower as a kitchen helper. “It should be a fun little test to see how good of a chef they are, to have someone in the kitchen with them that doesn’t really know about being a chef,” Bradshaw said. “It will be lots of fun, throwing in a curve ball there.”

The 2025 festival also had a potato bar. The Monte Vista basketball team came every year to provide the toppings, and spud sales supported the team. “You get a delicious spud, and you can buy a fresh potato from us, and support the team,” Bradshaw said. A classroom from Colorado State University came down that year to give a presentation for students, hosted by the Monte Vista Future Farmers of America. Asked about the day ahead, Bradshaw said: “We will see what the day brings, but nice weather would really help.”

A bus to the research center

The guided agricultural tour leaves from the park by bus while the morning is still early. In 2025 there was one tour, departing around 8 a.m. and returning around 11. In 2019, when the festival fell on September 7, Jim Ehrlich, executive director of Colorado Potatoes, hosted the tour. It went to the San Luis Valley Research Center and a local grower’s field, where passengers talked directly with growers and researchers. The tour was free and had limited seats.

The park held more that year: an antique tractor display with homemade ice cream, a truck and semi show, and a trampoline quad jumper. That evening a motorsport aerial freestyle show with X-Game medalists ran at the Ski-Hi Park Arena.

A committee from 1941 and a potato candy

The Colorado Potato Administrative Committee was founded in 1941 to organize what were then more than 175 Colorado potato growers and shippers under a common purpose. None of the pages records when its festival began.

The record does show an earlier form of the festival. In 2014 the program included a Downtown Taste-Testing Tour. Marilynn Davey, of Shades, Quilts & Etc., took first place in the sweet category with an Irish peanut butter potato candy. Her recipe, which the committee still publishes, starts with one potato, boiled until very tender and mashed with a fork. A 32-ounce package of confectioners’ sugar is stirred in a little at a time until the dough stiffens. The dough is pressed into a 12-inch square and spread with peanut butter, then rolled in waxed paper into a log. After an hour’s chilling, the log is sliced into rounds about three-quarters of an inch thick.