Since March, Ukiah has marked its 150th birthday mostly in quiet places. There was a proclamation, an online archive, an art show at the conference center, and a museum exhibit that opened September 4. On Saturday, October 17, the anniversary goes outdoors. The 2026 PumpkinFest parade runs on the theme "Ukiah's 150th: past, present, and future," and the city has asked the groups who march to bring the history themselves.
Before that weekend and after it, the rest of the anniversary is running out of time. One exhibit closes in November, another in February, and each shows a different part of the city's story.
A Birthday Built Mostly on Paper
The anniversary has a name, a logo, and a small team behind it. The City brands it "Ukiah 150," and the badge reads "City of Ukiah / 150 Years / Est. 1876." The City Council roster lists a "City's 150-Year Anniversary Planning Ad Hoc," with Juan Orozco and Mari Rodin assigned to it. A proclamation signed March 18 marked the 1876 incorporation and invited the community to reflect on the city's past and future.
A lot of the work has been archival. The City posted a condensed history credited to the Historical Society of Mendocino County, along with an online photo collection whose pictures and captions the society supplied. The public kickoff came on June 12 at the Ukiah Civic Center. The Ukiah Daily Journal reported music, cultural performances, local-history displays, activities, and a time-capsule station.
That kickoff was one evening. Most of what has stayed up since then hangs on walls, in two buildings a short drive apart.
The Two Rooms Still Telling the Story
The first room is the Ukiah Valley Conference Center at 200 S. School St. The City's "150 Years of Ukiah" exhibition opened there on June 12, the same day as the kickoff. The call for artists invited people of all ages to submit work about Ukiah's past, present, and future, including local landscapes, history, traditions, and ideas about what comes next. The building already uses that three-part framing. Its wall mural, "Ukiah Valley – Past, Present, and Future," predates the anniversary. The artist says on HistoryMural.com that she was chosen through a 2018 competition. This year's exhibition takes up the same theme inside, with work by many hands.
The second room is the Grace Hudson Museum. Its exhibit Deep Valley: People, Places, Memory opened September 4 and marks three anniversaries at once: the museum's 40th, the city's 150th, and the nation's 250th. The museum chose specific places for it: Todd Grove Park, the Palace Hotel, Mendocino State Hospital, Pinoleville Rancheria, the Latino Americano Concilio, the Ukiah Haiku Festival, the City of 10,000 Buddhas, and the history of the Sun House and the museum itself. The Sun House Guild and Grace Hudson Museum members funded the exhibit.
Both rooms are open now, but on different clocks:
| Anniversary piece | Where | Runs through |
|---|---|---|
| "150 Years of Ukiah" artist exhibition | Ukiah Valley Conference Center, 200 S. School St. | November 22, 2026 |
| Deep Valley: People, Places, Memory | Grace Hudson Museum | February 7, 2027 |
| PumpkinFest parade, 150th theme | Downtown Ukiah | October 17, 2026, 10 a.m. |
The conference center show closes first, 49 days from today. The museum exhibit stays up through winter. The parade lasts one morning.
Why the Parade Is the Odd One Out
Everything above was put together by someone. The City selected the artists, the museum chose its places, and the historical society wrote the captions. The parade works the other way. The City's call asks entrants to show "your favorite places, historic people, traditions, and anything that makes Ukiah special to your organization or group." Entry costs $25, and Ukiah Valley Youth Soccer League teams are exempt through their coaches.
So for one morning the anniversary is told by whoever decides to march. The children's division of the baking contest follows the same idea. Kids 12 and under can enter a pumpkin item or PumpkinFest-themed decor, and the City's examples are a favorite place, a historical figure, or a piece of Ukiah scenery chosen "to celebrate Ukiah's 150th."
Even the giant pumpkins become part of the story. After Friday's weigh-off, the City says, the pumpkins ride on a float in the parade and then sit on display through the weekend.
The Weekend, Hour by Hour
The City's schedule for the 2026 Ukiah Country PumpkinFest:
- Friday, October 16, 4 to 7 p.m.: Giant Pumpkin Weigh-Off at Alex Thomas Plaza. Entry is $10 and no pre-registration is needed, but entries must arrive between 4:00 and 6:30 p.m. Prizes total more than $3,000, and the grand prize pays $1.50 per pound for the heaviest pumpkin. Last year's winner weighed 729 pounds, which would have paid about $1,094 at that rate.
- Saturday, October 17, 10 a.m.: The parade, followed by the downtown street faire until 6 p.m.
- Sunday, October 18, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.: The second faire day. The Diaper Derby starts at 11:30 a.m. It's free, and the only rule is that the baby can't walk yet. The baking contest is at 1 p.m., and the Pet Costume Contest, presented by the Mendocino Barkery, is at 2 p.m. Dogs, cats, chickens, goats, and other pets are welcome, with separate categories for pets up to 25 pounds and over 25 pounds, human-and-pet duos, and groups.
The faire also has a Fire and Safety Expo, a food court, a beer and wine garden, a haunted house, Scarecrow City, Scout-O-Rama, a Ferris wheel and bounce houses, a children's stage, and a 3-on-3 basketball tournament. Vendor applications closed July 17, and the City runs a waitlist at [email protected].
A Festival With Its Own Short History
PumpkinFest is a good fit for an anniversary parade partly because it's a piece of local history too. The City credits Harry and Shirley Botham, two Half Moon Bay residents who retired in Ukiah, with the original idea. They had watched Half Moon Bay's pumpkin festival grow from a small event into a statewide one. The first version, in 1993, was a half-day event in the Safeway parking lot. Judy Pruden, who worked on that first festival, took the idea to former City Manager Candace Horsley and former Chamber of Commerce director Elizabeth Brazil. The first official Ukiah Country PumpkinFest began with the 1994 weigh-off, which drew more than 60 entries. The logo came in 1996, the same year the Savings Bank of Mendocino County started Scarecrow City.
That makes the festival 32 years old this fall, counting from 1994. The city it celebrates is 150. The parade puts the two histories on the same street for a morning.
The Rest of the Calendar Around It
Several events fall on either side of PumpkinFest:
- Saturday, October 10, 9:30 a.m. to 2 p.m.: Pastels on the Plaza at Alex Thomas Plaza, a week before the weigh-off uses the same square.
- Wednesday, October 28, 4 to 8 p.m.: Mendocino College's free 14th Annual Día de los Muertos event at Pomo Plaza and the Lowery Student Center on the Ukiah campus.
- Saturday, November 14, 3 to 5 p.m.: "Richard Spills the Tea," a Deep Valley program held outside Ukiah at the Mendocino County Museum, 400 E. Commercial St. in Willits. Counterculture archivist and cannabis historian Richard Jergensen and friends will talk about the past and future of cannabis in Mendocino County. Attendees can also see the museum's Behind the Redwood Curtain: Cannabis in California exhibit, which opens there October 10.
- Through the end of Deep Valley: Docent-led tours of the Sun House, Grace and John Hudson's 1911 Craftsman redwood bungalow, offered when docents are available. Ask at the museum's front desk.
The City's events page for the anniversary shows a "Cemetery Walks – 150" graphic, but it lists no date or location, so check with the City before planning around it.
Here's a practical order for seeing everything. Go to the conference center exhibition before November 22. Watch the parade on the 17th. Leave the Grace Hudson Museum for the darker months, when Deep Valley and a Sun House tour make a good afternoon indoors. The museum show runs until February 7, 2027, so it outlasts both the parade and the art show by months.
Steve Bowne grew up in Redwood Valley and works out of Ukiah, so he has seen many PumpkinFest weekends come through downtown. If the 150th has you thinking about how Ukiah has grown and where your own place fits in its next chapter, he's happy to talk it through. Let's Connect.
