The Corn Pit
You will not get them out of it. A pit of loose shelled corn under the shelter, buckets and scoops, and corn in their shoes for a week afterward. Free.
33rd Annual · Est. 1994
Sacred Heart Church — Oconee, Illinois
Three Sundays of pumpkins, kettle corn, hay rides and pork ribeye sandwiches in a farm town of a few hundred people. Everything on the grounds is run by the parish, and every dollar stays here.
Walnut St & N 2nd St · Oconee, IL 62553 · Directions
On the grounds
You will not get them out of it. A pit of loose shelled corn under the shelter, buckets and scoops, and corn in their shoes for a week afterward. Free.
Climb up on the bales and go out around the cornfield and back. Grandpa rides too. Nothing about it has changed since 1994, and nobody wants it to.
Goats and sheep bedded down in fresh straw, long since used to visitors. A good spot to catch your breath while the kids say hello.
Pumpkins from pie-sized to two-handed, gourds in white and green, mums in every color the greenhouse had. Almost nobody leaves empty-handed.
The food
Five stands, all of them run by parish volunteers in the same spots they have used for years. Nothing is catered and nothing is frozen.
The Jack-O-Pot
One drawing before the festival opens and eleven more across the three Sundays, finishing with three $1,000 winners on October 11. Every ticket stays in the drum for all twelve.
Also drawn this fall
Quilted by the hands of the ladies and friends of the parish, the way it has been done here for decades. Drawn Sunday, November 8, over coffee and donuts.
See the prizes