The City Put Seven Halloween Events on the Calendar, and Only One of Them Is Actually Scary
Somewhere between the pumpkin patch and the haunted house lies the territory most families actually want in October: dark enough to feel like an occasion, bright enough that nobody has to be carried back to the car. Murfreesboro's parks department has spent years finding that line, and this fall it has put seven events on the calendar between October 11 and October 24 that mostly sit right on it.
Exactly one of them is built to frighten you. The rest are hayrides, carnival games, a fun run and a walk through a pioneer village after sunset.
The full slate, in order
Pumpkin Fun Run opens the month on Saturday, October 11 at Gateway Island, 1875 W. College Street. Registration starts at 3 p.m. and the race goes off at 4 p.m. Admission is one or more nonperishable food items, which is the kind of entry fee that tells you what the event is really for.
McFadden Fall Festival and Haunted Hallways follows on Tuesday, October 14, 5 to 8 p.m., at the McFadden Community Center, 211 Bridge Avenue. It is free. “Haunted Hallways” at a community center in the early evening is about as gentle as the genre gets.
Wild Rumpus at the Wilderness Station lands Wednesday, October 15, 5 to 6:30 p.m., at the Wilderness Station inside Barfield Crescent Park. It runs $5 a person or $10 for a family, which for ninety minutes of naturalist-led autumn mischief is a bargain.
Cannonsburgh Village After Dark takes Thursday and Friday, October 16 and 17, 6 to 9 p.m. Cannonsburgh is a reconstructed pioneer village, and walking it after sunset in October does most of the atmospheric work without anyone in a mask having to jump out. The price was not posted at the time of writing; the parks department can confirm it. That same weekend has more going on around town, which we covered separately in our look at the October 16-17 family weekend.
Then everything else stacks onto the final weekend. On Friday and Saturday, October 23 and 24, Barfield Crescent Park at 697 Veterans Parkway runs three things at once: the Barfield Bash Carnival from 5 to 9 p.m., the Not So Haunted Hayride from 5 p.m. until dusk at $5 a person, and Old Scream Road, which starts when it gets dark and also costs $5.
Reading the names carefully
The naming here is not accidental, and it is worth taking literally. The hayride is called Not So Haunted because it is not. Old Scream Road is called Old Scream Road because it is. They run the same nights, in the same park, a short walk apart — which is a genuinely smart bit of programming, because it means the eleven-year-old who wants to be terrified and the four-year-old who very much does not can arrive in the same minivan.
Barfield Crescent Park is the right host for that. At roughly 430 acres, with more than seven miles of paved and unpaved trail winding through it, there is enough treeline that a walk after dark feels like an actual walk after dark rather than a lap around a parking lot.
What to sort out before you go
Two of the seven — Cannonsburgh After Dark and the Barfield Bash Carnival — did not have a posted price when this was written. If your evening depends on knowing, call the parks department before you load the car rather than after.
Old Scream Road begins “at dark,” which in Murfreesboro in late October means somewhere around 6:30 p.m. and drifting earlier as the month goes on. If you are bringing someone who has a bedtime, the hayride starts at 5 and you can be back at the car before the scary one opens.
And the two cheapest entries on the list are arguably the two best: a free festival on a Tuesday night and a fun run that costs a can of green beans. For more of what is on around town with kids in tow, we keep a running weekly family list going.
