Haxtun's Corn Festival: a September tradition more than a century old

If you want to understand a farm county, go to its biggest party. In Haxtun, that party is the Corn Festival, held each September in a town of fewer than a thousand people that calls itself the Corn Capital of Colorado.

The festival is old. The town counted its 100th celebration in 2021, which means it has been gathering people downtown for more than a century, through good harvests and lean ones. That kind of run tells you something: this is not a tourist event dreamed up for visitors. It is the day the community sets aside for itself, year after year.

The heart of it is the parade down Main Street. Around it you will find vendors and a craft fair, street games, and the easy crowd of a small town where most people know each other. It lands in late summer, near the end of the growing season, when the surrounding fields are heavy and the harvest is close. The whole thing reads as a thank-you to the land that built the place.

If you go, you will learn more about what this county values in one afternoon than a guidebook could tell you. Dates and the full schedule change from year to year, so check the Town of Haxtun’s Corn Festival page before you plan your trip.