Halloween 2024 in Ashland

11 Nov Halloween 2024 in Ashland

Children’s Halloween parade.

Ashland Halloween history stories.

Moore family: Spookiest Halloween house.

My Haunted Ashland tour on Halloween day.

Published November 2024, with 24 photos!

Halloween in Ashland was a true community event in the year 2024. It hasn’t always been that way, as I will explain below.

Thousands of local residents in Halloween costumes filled the streets of downtown Ashland on the afternoon of October 31, 2024. The visual and emotional heart of the day was the Children’s Halloween parade, which began near the Ashland Library at 3:30 pm, and ended at the Ashland Plaza. Hundreds of children were present, including lots of little ones in strollers. Along with the children, there were many more adults expressing their “inner child” through dressing up this day.

Creativity abounded

I’ll begin with some photos I took during and after the 2024 Children’s Halloween parade.

Step into the “time machine” — to Ashland Halloweens of the 1890s

Here is what Ashland Plaza looked like in 1885, and presumably in the 1890s as well.

Our oldest Halloween story is from 1890, when Ashland’s population was about 1,800 people.

“Hollowe’en night was celebrated in a more boisterous and roisterous way in Ashland last Friday night than ever before. Scarcely a movable gate in the town was left upon its hinges, and signs and other movable objects were mixed up in the old-fashioned way. No arrests.”
[“Brevities,” Ashland Tidings, November 7, 1890]

I found an 1899 story about mischievous crowds of boys (and some girls, too) in our local newspaper archives. It begins with this poem.

    “Take your gates an’ nail ’em down,
          Turn the bull dog loose;
    Boys’ll be a-coming ‘roun’
          Fur to play the deuce.
    Ain’t no way to hold ’em down,
          P’licemen won’t be seen;
    They’ve got a mortgage on the town,
          Fur this is Halloween.”

    “Gates were nailed down and wired on in Ashland Tuesday night, but it didn’t seem to make much difference next morning. There were the same number of gates, signs, wagons and other loose articles spirited to out of the way places as of yore. . . . .Very little destruction of property is reported, but there were several instances where barns were entered and wagons taken out and left on the highway in an inverted position. Happy, good natured, mischievous crowds of boys, and there were some girls, too, moved up and down the streets until after midnight, soon after which the usual quietness reigned.”
[Semi-Weekly Tidings, Ashland, November 2, 1899, page 3]

Our “Time Machine” stop in the 1970s

Lenny Friedman, who owned Pyramid Juice Company for many years, told a 1970s story on Facebook: “I had a Halloween party in the late 70’s at the Pyramid Juice Company on Fordyce Street. The Geppetos staff lined the long driveway with jack-o- lanterns. A lot of juice for kids, a haunted house, live band, and a keg of beer for the adults. We all went downtown afterwards to see comedian and Shakespeare actor Harry Anderson.”

Harry Anderson later rocketed to fame on the TV show Night Court, which aired from 1984 to 1992. According to Wikipedia, he lived in Ashland from 1971 to 1976.

Now … into the 1980s

According to the Daily Tidings newspaper, 1985 was the first year that the Ashland Chamber sponsored the “Children’s Halloween parade.”

1986 was the low point for out-of-control crowd behavior on Halloween. As I understand it, Ashland adult Halloween celebrations gradually became larger through the late 1970s and early 1980s. Word spread to other towns and cities about how much fun you could have in downtown Ashland on Halloween. In 1986, Halloween night was also Friday night, a perfect day for out-of-town revelers to make a weekend of it in Ashland. At this time, Main Street was closed from the Ashland Library to Helman Street from 4:30 pm to about 2:00 am, while the bars stayed open until 2:30 am! The 1986 Halloween also introduced food booths along Main Street and two live bands: “Pyramid” and “The Fire House 5.”  

On November 1, 1986, the Ashland Daily Tidings article headline read: “Stabbing, shooting mar festivities.” Police Chief Vic Lively estimated up to 7,000 people downtown that Halloween. An Ashland man was stabbed in the stomach and underwent surgery at Ashland Community Hospital. Then a couple hours later in what seems like a freak accident, a Central Point man was shot in the foot in one of the bars. On top of that, the Police Chief said that “groups of youths in their late teens and early twenties roamed the downtown area, throwing bottles and clashing with each other.” Downtown was finally cleared about 3:30 am that year.

By the 1990s, Halloween became an Ashland community event again. Increasing focus on children during the past ten years or so has strengthened the holiday tradition — without dampening the creative spirits of our residents of all ages.

Moore family’s scary Halloween home display

Karen Moore and two of her four children, Isa and Mateo, joined me for a Halloween talk the evening of October 29, 2024. A link to see the talk at Rogue Valley Metaphysical Library video channel is HERE. The Moore family’s enthusiasm for Halloween had the audience clapping and cheering. Here are some of the stories they told and photos they presented.

Karen Moore described the family history with Halloween. “We moved to Ashland seven years ago. We were always a Halloween family, but on a much smaller scale. We were always cursed being the house that never got trick-or-treaters. We would dress up and decorate, and then no one would show up. We would be super-bummed.

“Then when we moved to Ashland, we got this great house [on East Main Street] next to Willow Wind School, across from the Armory. The first year we were here, we went to the Halloween parade. We dressed up and went downtown. Our eyes were like saucers – thinking ‘hold on, this is a whole town of people that are like us!’ That was our ‘green light moment’ to go for it.”

Every year since then the Moore family has made their street-side Halloween display bigger and more elaborate. In addition to the display, they offer a Haunted House for trick-or-treaters on Halloween evening. The photo below shows the entrance to their 2024 Haunted House. Remember the family being “super-bummed” to have no trick-or-treaters where they lived before moving to Ashland? Isa said, “We had 700 trick-or-treaters at our house last year! They were lined up down the block.” 

Karen continued their story, “We are a very creative family. All of the kids are artists. You have probably seen Isa’s artwork.” Isa took over, saying: “On the Ashland High School wall [on Mountain Avenue], I painted the mural for Aidan Ellison. That was a big Ashland community moment for me.” [Note: See my photo essay about Isa painting the BIPOC Celebration Mural HERE.]

They make everything themselves, starting with found objects. The Egyptian chariot, for example, started as a garden cart, and Isa hand painted the mummy casket. As Isa put it, “All of this shows our passion for the holiday.” 

More Halloween yard displays

My Haunted Ashland tour on Halloween day

I led thirteen Haunted Ashland walking tours during the month of October 2024, including two on Halloween day. This tour begins at the Peerless Hotel on Fourth Street, goes to the McCall House B&B on Oak Street, visits two buildings at the Ashland Plaza, and ends at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival Elizabethan Theatre. I tell first person stories of encounters with spirits at each of these sites. Most of these ghost stories were told personally to me or to a friend of mine.

You will know when Halloween 2025 is near

When you see this sign at the Moore house on East Main Street, you will know the countdown to Halloween day has begun!

More Ashland Halloween photos and stories on my website

Here are many fun photos from the 2023 Children’s Halloween parade.

Halloween Parade 2023

If you want more of Ashland Halloween creativity, here are photos of Halloween displays at houses around town in 2021.

Spooky Halloween Houses 2021