Wiggins Day Fall Harvest Festival

On the evening of Saturday, Aug. 29, 2026, lawn chairs and blankets covered the grass at Teets Park in Wiggins. Food trucks lined the park and stayed busy as people stopped for dinner, and kids tossed footballs and ran from one activity to the next. The Fort Morgan Times counted it the 52nd annual Harvest Festival. The Town of Wiggins has also billed it as Wiggins Day – Fall Harvest Festival, and its parks and recreation department called it the Fall Festival, with hours of 4 to 10 p.m. and a request that people bring their own chairs or blankets.

An evening at Teets Park

The grounds are the Delbert Teets Ballfield and Wiggins Town Park at 417 High Street. The pages give nothing about Delbert Teets beyond his name on the field. Interstate 76 runs along the north side of town, 15 miles from Fort Morgan, the Morgan County seat, and 64 miles from Denver. The town sits at 4,547 feet.

The pavilion at the park was open for square dancing and set with places to sit and eat. The town had only recently put it up when the Fort Morgan Times reported on it in August 2024. In 2026 the Mountains & Plains Square Dance Council spent two hours there calling square dances and line dances, meant to show how simple the steps are to learn. The council was supporting the Shirts and Skirts Club and signing people up for fall lessons. The Prairie Promenaders, Merry Mixers, Square Dusters, Ponderosa Promenaders and Foot and Fiddle joined in.

Out on the grass, Mozos Pixels parked its mobile arcade and offered free play to anyone who wanted it, along with outdoor games. Putt and Jump on the Go set up a bouncy house and a mini golf course. Town Trustees walked through the park talking with families. The Jason Abbott Band played through the evening in the late summer weather. A photograph in the Times shows a festivalgoer named Lhyla, who, by the caption’s account, enjoyed the music so much she decided to join the band.

Cake walk, chili and axes

The 2025 festival, the 51st, ran on Saturday, Aug. 30, from 4 to 10:30 p.m. Admission was free, and the day had a longer program. A Farmers and Makers Market opened it from 8 to 11 a.m., with vendors selling fresh produce, baked goods and handmade goods. At 4 p.m. the town held its First Annual Chili Cook-Off. Entries could be traditional, vegetarian, or chili-themed appetizers and desserts. The public voted, the winner was announced at 6, and proceeds went to youth programs.

The Cake Walk began at 5 p.m. with eight cakes and desserts as prizes. Axe throwing ran from 4 to 8, with staff on hand to guide throwers. A Kids Zone had bounce houses, craft tables and face painting. Food trucks served through the evening, and people were encouraged to bring lawn chairs and eat dinner in the park. The band Northwoods closed the night.

Fifty years a town

The count of editions runs close to the town’s own age. Wiggins was incorporated on October 11, 1974. On Saturday, Aug. 31, 2024, the town held a party at Teets Amphitheater, 300 E. Fourth Ave., to mark 50 years as an incorporated town. Double Wide, a 90s country band, played from 7 p.m. after a solo guitarist opened. There was a tractor pull and a beer garden sponsored by Pope Farms. “We will have numerous food trucks with options for American food, Mexican food, brick oven pizza, BBQ, wings, donuts, snow cones, ice cream and more,” said Mayor Chris Franzen. “We invite people to bring lawn chairs or blankets to sit on the grass at the Amphitheater and enjoy the music.”

The town Franzen spoke for has grown. The census counted 531 people in 1980, 893 in 2010 and 1,401 in 2020. The town calls itself “The Gateway to the Plains and the Rockies,” for its place where Interstate 76, Highway 34 and Highway 52 meet.

Corona and the scout Wiggins

The settlement began in 1882 as Corona, a depot on the Burlington Railroad. Around 1900 it was renamed for Oliver Perry Wiggins. He was born July 22, 1823, at Grand Island, Erie County, New York. He guided and scouted for Captain John C. Frémont on some of his explorations through northern Colorado in the 1840s, and he accompanied Kit Carson on his expeditions for 12 years.

On June 22, 1895, the Boulder Daily Camera reported that Wiggins, then a Deputy United States Marshal, and his wife were celebrating their golden wedding in Denver. Fifty years before, as a hunter and trapper working with Carson, he had traveled over the Santa Fe trail and up the Ohio River to Niagara Falls to marry Miss Martha Wardell. The couple made headquarters at St. Joseph, Missouri, for some years. For ten years Martha Wiggins helped her husband at stage stations on the overland route and saw the caravans pass west. By the paper’s account, Wiggins was severely shot only once, at the storming of Monterey in the Mexican war, while serving in Carson’s band of sharpshooters.

The same article told of a near fortune. In the early 1880s Wiggins and a son-in-law held a quarter interest in the Molly Gibson mine and spent every dollar they could raise developing it. They judged the work hopeless and sold out. Nine feet further into the rock, the ore was struck, and it made scores of people wealthy. The Wiggins interest was afterward sold to J. J. Hagerman, the reported price being a million dollars.

A Find a Grave contributor, Ronni Croft, notes that Denver directories list Wiggins as a policeman from 1892 until about 1900 and as a bailiff until 1909. He died at his home at 3419 Larimer on November 30, 1913, at 90, and was buried at Fairmount Cemetery. The Rocky Mountain News notice of his funeral read: “All friends invited, especially Pioneers, Sons of Colorado, employees of police and postoffice departments.”