5 Fall Festivals

Celebrate harvesttime with giant pumpkins, apple butter, and small-town cheer.

Every October, towns across the state usher in harvest season, as apple butter kettles simmer, giant pumpkins hit the scale, and communities celebrate with parades, contests, and crafts. From the frontier farm demonstrations at Lee’s Summit to the record-setting gourds of Republic, the history of orchards in Versailles, the delicious traditions at Mount Vernon, and the river-town charm of Kimmswick, autumn is a celebration of Missouri’s agrarian roots.

Fall Festival of Arts, Crafts, and Music
October 3–4, 2026, Lee’s Summit

Every year on the first weekend of October, the Missouri Town Living History Museum in Lee’s Summit hosts one of the region’s longest-running fall traditions. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Fall Festival of Arts, Crafts, and Music, and the museum is celebrating with artisan demonstrations, historic trades, and farm animals that bring the 1800s to life.

“The sights and smells are unique. From the sheep and oxen of the farm to the apple butter and kettle corn, folks are making and demonstrating historic skills, not what we get to see every day,” says Amy Coale, site supervisor for the Missouri Town Living History Museum. “It’s a window into another time and a sensory experience.”

Food demonstrations run throughout the day. Visitors can watch small kettles of apple butter simmer over an open flame while volunteers explain how it is made. A cider press turns out fresh cider, kettle corn pops the old-fashioned way, and a vendor sells homemade root beer.

Craftspeople work their trades throughout the grounds: blacksmithing, tinsmithing, wool spinning and weaving, and cooking on a hearth. Skilled members from the Spinners and Weavers Guild demonstrate and sell their wares, and a quilt show fills the church. Dulcimer players and contra dancers add music and entertainment. Guests can try their hand at hoop races, stilts, and archery, or take a mule-drawn wagon ride. “It’s appealing to all generations,” Amy says.

Pumpkin Daze Festival
October 2–3, 2026, Republic

Republic doubles in size every year on the first weekend in October. Home to about 23,000 people, the town draws thousands of visitors over two days for its annual Pumpkin Daze Fall Festival at J. R. Martin Park.

The event began in 1992, when a handful of residents organized a small harvest festival around giant pumpkins. Three decades later, Pumpkin Daze is now an official weigh-off site for the Great Pumpkin Commonwealth, the international body that governs giant pumpkin competitions, putting local growers on the same level as some of the world’s largest gourd growers.

The free weigh-off held on the first Saturday in October is the heart of the festival. Growers arrive from as far as Nebraska, and each pumpkin can be submitted for only one event. The giant pumpkins take months of careful tending, and some competitors sing, talk, or read to their pumpkins—some even hug them. In 2025, Landon Hough claimed the first prize of $1,200 with a 1,241-pound behemoth. Visitors can chat with growers, and winners sell seeds to aspiring pumpkin growers.

Additional competitions include categories for watermelons, gourds, and sunflowers, as well as a youth division field pumpkin competition. The 2025 second-place winner, Steve Kueny, also set a Guinness World Record for the longest journey by pumpkin boat, which he earned in 2023 by paddling a 1,293-pound pumpkin named Huckle Berry 39 miles down the Missouri River. That record has since been broken.

Beyond the competitions, the Kiwanis Club hosts a kids’ zone with inflatables and games, and young drivers can compete in a pedal tractor pull. There is also a costumed pet parade. On Saturday, jazz bands, choirs, and school groups perform at the amphitheater while food trucks and vendors sell crafts, mums, and pumpkins.

Apple Butter Makin’ Days
October 9–11, 2026, Mount Vernon

The apple butter recipe hasn’t changed since the early Apple Butter Makin’ Days at Mount Vernon, and neither has the method: Apples are cooked over an open flame in huge copper kettles that visitors can stir with giant paddles, all on the Lawrence County courthouse lawn. Apple Butter Makin’ Days, a free event that began in 1967, now draws more than 100,000 people.

“It’s a fun family-friendly environment,” says Brittni Bates, executive director of the Mount Vernon Area Chamber of Commerce, which runs the festival along with the volunteers from the Apple Butter Makin’ Days Committee. “The music is great. The entire local community is involved, and the Midwest hospitality is very inviting.”

Starting in January, local volunteers begin producing the apple butter, which the Lions Club and two local churches sell all weekend.

The shopping is a serious draw, with over 300 juried vendors. “Every product is crafted, handmade, or homemade,” Brittni says, including the kettle corn made on-site, the pork rinds, and the fudge.

The contests and races are pure fall festival fun: apple putting; apple pie baking (with a cash prize); apple pie eating; bubble gum blowing; husband calling, a competition where wives yodel or sing to their spouse and the audience votes for their favorite; nail driving; a terrapin race; and a costumed wiener dog race. Saturday brings one of the largest parades in southwest Missouri, along with a pet parade. New to the festivities are a cornhole tournament and a kids’ zone, featuring a mechanical bull designed for junior riders, a bungee jump swing, laser tag, and a barrel train.

Local history is commemorated on tours of the Jones Memorial Chapel museum and an 1800s-era log cabin, with all-day demonstrations of flint knapping, broom making, and hearth cooking hosted on the museum grounds, thanks to the Lawrence County Historical Society.

This year’s theme, “Rooted in Tradition,” celebrates 100 years of Route 66 (Historic Route 66 is just five miles away) with a car show and a Route 66-themed parade. Live music includes local performer Ty Harlan.

Old Tyme Apple Festival
October 3–4, Versailles

“Deep roots, strong nation, sweet traditions” is this year’s theme for Versailles’s Olde Tyme Apple Festival. Once a year, Versailles, home to about 2,500 people, becomes the biggest small town in Missouri, drawing nearly 40,000 visitors for the event.

The festival was named for a large orchard outside town, which once shipped apples around the world but is now closed. A past president of the festival planted apple trees at schools and businesses across Versailles in memory of the orchard, and visitors are welcome to pick apples from their branches.

Festival goers can find a variety of fresh apples, along with cider, fritters, dumplings, cider slushes, homemade apple butter, and apple wine made at local vineyards.

Pies from a judged apple pie baking contest are auctioned off, with the proceeds supporting college scholarships for local high school students.

Kids can enjoy bounce houses, and after a long hiatus, family-friendly carnival rides return this year, sponsored by the Versailles Lions Club. There will be a Knights of Columbus car show, a children’s beauty pageant called the Apple Dumpling, and a quilting contest.

The Saturday parade includes horses, floats, fire engines, and marching bands. The Olde Tyme Fiddler’s Contest draws competitors from across the region, and the Central High School Kiltie Drum and Bugle Corps travels from Springfield to perform. Visitors can take part in a 5K run and a golf tournament on Sunday.

“You’re getting that oldtime festival feel,” says Brice Lake, the Versailles festival chairman who has coordinated the event for 11 years. “Over 250 vendors are all artisans and crafters with one-of-a-kind wares.”

Live music plays for free all weekend, from Presley Week’s country music on Main Street to the RetroNerds’ ’80s tunes outside the brewpub Bee’s Knees, and Saturday night wraps up with a Lions Club demolition derby at the fairgrounds.

Erik Ackerson of the Versailles Area Chamber of Commerce says the weekend feels like a reunion.

“We love the fried pies at Yoder’s. It is the kind of festival people build their year around, something they can count on and look forward to every autumn,” Erik says.

Apple Butter Festival
October 24–25, 2026, Kimmswick

Home to just 133 people, Kimmswick welcomes as many as 150,000 visitors over two days every year for its beloved Apple Butter Festival, held the last full weekend of October.

The festival began nearly five decades ago with residents making crafts and jam to celebrate autumn, according to Jennifer Kraft, Kimmswick’s city clerk and event coordinator. At the Apple Butter Pavilion, members of the Kimmswick Historical Society cook apple butter in a copper kettle, and guests can grab a large wooden paddle to take a turn stirring, which earns them a festival sticker. While thousands of jars of apple butter are sold each year, they always sell out, Jennifer says.

Visitors will find apple-themed jewelry, blankets, and decorations, along with hard apple cider, kettle corn, homemade root beer, and an artist creating sculptures with a chainsaw. “We stick with locally made—true artisans making their wares,” Jennifer explains. At the park, kids can enjoy a petting zoo featuring baby kangaroos, face painting, balloon artists, henna tattoos, horseback rides, and a caricature artist.

The Rocky Martin Band, Grassroots, and AMF Duo will be featured in the free live music lineup.

Mayor Kenny Kraft says it’s the town itself that draws the crowds: “It’s the ambience of our city. It’s the small-town feel of the late 1800s, early 1900s, the smell, the sounds, the sights. And it is warm. You can’t duplicate it in very many places.”

---

This article was originally printed in the October 2026 issue of Missouri Life.