Most people who drive past the lower level of Shamrock Animal Hospital on South Robert Trail see exactly what it looks like the other 364 days of the year: a strip of parking spots below a veterinary clinic, tucked next to whatever retail tenant happens to be leasing the storefront above it. This October, that same stretch of asphalt becomes the starting line for one of Rosemount's oldest community traditions, and if you're going off what you remember from a few years back, you'll likely end up in the wrong lot.
The Haunted Woods Trail runs from 6 to 8 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 30, in Central Park. That part hasn't changed. What has changed, more than once, is where the line actually forms before the trail winds through the park. This year's start point is the building known as The Warehouse, occupying that same lower-level space below Shamrock Animal Hospital. A few years ago, the identical spot operated under a different name, JAMM Dance. Before that, the queue formed at the Park and Ride lot on Highway 3, across from the Steeple Center. The trail itself is decades old. Where you stand to get onto it is not something anyone can assume from memory.
A Route That's Never Held Still
The event's history explains why the starting point keeps drifting. According to coverage of its 40th anniversary in 2022, the Haunted Woods Trail traces back to the early 1980s, which puts it well into its fifth decade this year. It didn't begin in Central Park at all. Early versions ran through Carroll's Woods before moving indoors to the high school gym, then to the Rosemount Community Center, before organizers settled on Central Park in 2001 specifically because the space suited younger children better than the wooded original route.
Since that 2001 move, the destination has stayed fixed. The entry point has not. As attendance grew, the queue outgrew whatever lot it started in, and the Rosemount Halloween Committee has repeatedly relocated the staging area to handle the crowd. That committee, an all-volunteer group that has been led for years by co-chair Mike Bouchard alongside his wife Maureen Geraghty Bouchard and fellow co-chairs Barb and Paul Hester, treats the logistics of a two-hour event as a months-long project. The result of that planning shows up less in the trail's décor than in details like this year's entrance, which most attendees will only learn secondhand unless they check ahead.
What You're Actually Walking Into
Once inside, the trail has stuck to a formula that longtime residents would recognize. Recent years have featured a run of themed stations along the route, including a pirate ship, a fortune teller's tent and a cemetery scene, lit by dozens of illuminated pumpkins and inflatable Halloween props. Organizers have described gathering volunteers on the morning of the event to hand-carve as many as 300 pumpkins to line the path, a tradition that alone takes several hours of coordinated work before the first family shows up that evening.
None of that decoration happens without the businesses and civic groups that staff the candy stations. Past years' rosters have included Pahl's Market, the Rosemount Lions Club, VFW Post 9344, First State Bank of Rosemount and the Rosemount High School Band Boosters, each running a stretch of the trail and handing out treats. The event doesn't charge admission, which is part of why it draws the crowds it does. In 2015, organizers estimated attendance above 3,200. By 2021, following a pandemic-related cancellation the year before, that number reportedly reached a record 4,800.
The Food Drive Hiding Inside a Candy Walk
What's easy to miss, if you only think of the Haunted Woods Trail as a kids' costume event, is what it actually funds. There's no ticket price, but organizers ask attendees to bring non-perishable food donations at the entrance, and those donations go directly to the Rosemount Family Resource Center Food Shelf. By 2022, the event's cumulative haul was estimated at roughly 10,000 pounds of food collected over the years the drive has run. The volunteer roster behind it has topped 50 people in recent years, none of them paid, all of them returning for a event that functions as much as an informal hunger-relief drive as it does a Halloween party.
That's the detail worth carrying into this year's trail. A free, family-run candy walk that's quietly become one of the more consistent food donation events on Rosemount's civic calendar, run entirely by neighbors who show up to plan it, decorate for it, staff it and clean it up afterward with no city payroll involved.
The Rest of That Same Stretch of October
The Haunted Woods Trail isn't the only thing on Rosemount's calendar this month, and knowing what else is happening in the same window fills out the picture of how the city spends late October.
| Date | Event | Location | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sat., Oct. 3, 2026 | Recycling Roundup | City of Rosemount | The city's first-ever event of its kind, aimed at clearing out household clutter for responsible recycling |
| Fri., Oct. 23, 2026 | Billy & Elton: The Hits | Steeple Center | Tribute concert featuring pianist Phil Thompson, hosted by the Rosemount Area Arts Council. Reserved seats $40, $35 for RAAC members |
| Sat., Oct. 30, 2026 | Haunted Woods Trail | Central Park | 6 to 8 p.m., starting at The Warehouse lot beneath Shamrock Animal Hospital |
The concert is worth a closer look on its own. The Steeple Center took over the former St. Joseph's Church building in 2010 and now hosts the Rosemount Area Arts Council's programming, a volunteer-run nonprofit founded in 2007 that puts on more than 50 events a year, many of them free. Billy & Elton isn't free, but at $35 to $40 a seat, it's a reasonably priced night out inside a building most residents associate with senior programming rather than concerts.
The Recycling Roundup is a smaller, quieter addition to the month, but it's the first time the city has run one, which makes it worth flagging rather than assuming it's an annual fixture already baked into everyone's routine.
A New Stop Before or After the Trail
If you're making an evening of Oct. 30, one more addition to Rosemount's food scene is worth knowing about. Beirut Lebanese Street Food opened in Rosemount this year after John and Madelaine Khoury spent 41 years running their restaurant in West St. Paul before relocating. The menu runs through shawarma, kafta misweh, falafel and a catering lineup that includes grape leaf rolls, lamb kabobs and a tabbouleh party bowl, the kind of family-run spot that rewards a stop on the way to or from Central Park rather than a drive-through chain.
None of this changes what the Haunted Woods Trail has always been: a free, kid-focused Halloween night held together by volunteers who've been doing this since some of tonight's parents were the ones walking the trail themselves. What's different this year is where you actually line up to get on it. Show up at the lot beneath Shamrock Animal Hospital, bring something non-perishable for the food shelf, and you'll be in the right place when the gates open at 6.
If you're new to Rosemount and want to know what else changes from one season to the next before it catches you off guard, Eric Frank keeps a close eye on the small shifts that make this town what it is. Let's Connect.
