Stillwater Has Been Promised a Downtown Ferris Wheel Since 1902. Harvest Fest Finally Parks One on Mulberry Point.

In September 1902, the Stillwater Daily Gazette reported that an upcoming street carnival would include a Ferris wheel. That was nine years after the ride became famous at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair. Two years later, in September 1904, another Gazette notice promised a Ferris wheel at a four-day street festival. Brent Peterson, executive director of the Washington County Historical Society, went looking for proof that either one actually showed up. "But I didn't find anything that stated that the Ferris wheel actually was there," he told the Pioneer Press.

This weekend's wheel is real, and it's 18,000 pounds. "Big Eli" is a 45-foot Ferris wheel built in 1953, and it's going up at the tip of Mulberry Point in Lowell Park for Stillwater Harvest Fest on Saturday, October 10, and Sunday, October 11. It's the newest piece of a festival that already draws an estimated 30,000 to 40,000 people a year. Its spot on the point matters, because the most impressive parts of Harvest Fest happen up high, out on the water or on a scale behind a crowd.

A ten-year search that ended in Cedar Rapids

Cory Buettner, who owns Leo's Grill & Malt Shop downtown and helps organize the festival, said the search started in 2016. The vendor who supplies the festival's inflatables was rehabbing a Ferris wheel, but that plan fell through. About five years ago Buettner started calling national companies. He found the wheels "were either unavailable or too expensive with shipping and setup."

He eventually found Big Eli at Round Concepts, a Ferris wheel company in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Owner Marvin Smejkal rents out eight wheels and bought his first one in 1998. Big Eli has 12 seats and is lit with 24 eight-foot LED tubes. It's named for the Eli Bridge Co., the company that first manufactured portable Ferris wheels.

Rides are $10 per ticket. Buettner says the wheel will give riders views of the St. Croix River, the Stillwater Lift Bridge, the historic downtown "and all of the Harvest Fest activities below."

What you'll be looking down on

Those "activities below" make this festival a good fit for a ride that lifts you 45 feet above the park. At ground level, most of the big pumpkin moments take place behind several rows of people.

The weigh-off. On Saturday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., growers bring giant pumpkins to the scale. Stillwater's claim to fame rests on a measure most visitors never hear about. The organizer says a weigh-off's world standing comes from the combined weight of its top 10 pumpkins, not just the single heaviest. By that measure, Stillwater says it set the world record in 2015, 2018 and 2023, and it also says the site produced a world-record pumpkin in 2010.

That explains a pattern in the winners' list. Here are the first-place pumpkins from the record years and last year, according to BigPumpkins.com's Stillwater results:

The 2018 winner was the lightest in the table, yet the organizer counts 2018 as a world-record year. A deep field of heavy pumpkins counts for more than one giant. The Great Pumpkin Commonwealth's figures for 2023 back this up: Stillwater's top 10 averaged 2,136.2 pounds that year, with Bernstrom's 2,501-pound pumpkin at the top.

The regatta. On Sunday, "pumpkin pilots" paddle hollowed giant pumpkins down the St. Croix. The St. Croix Growers Association supplies the pumpkins, and the race is 100 yards long. At noon, paddlers compete in a "Battle to Paddle." Event director Cassie McLemore says the winners get first pick of the pumpkins. The race starts at 2:30 p.m. The Star Tribune's coverage of the 2025 race described pumpkins cut open like jack-o'-lanterns with a saw. Scuba divers helped balance them and pushed the pilots to the starting line, with safety boats, EMTs and volunteers standing by. A race on open water is exactly the kind of event that looks better from 45 feet up than from the shoreline.

The drop. At 5:30 p.m. on both days, pumpkins fall from a 100-foot crane. In 2025, according to the Star Tribune, the regatta pumpkins weighed 500 to 1,000 pounds and were later used in the drop, so one pumpkin can do both jobs over a weekend. "Sometimes we drop one, but sometimes it's three at a time," McLemore said. "If it's a single one, it usually weighs around 1,000 pounds."

The weekend by the hour

Here's the order things happen in. The wheel runs throughout, so pick the moment you'd most like to see from above. The festival is open 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday.

1. Friday, October 9, 6–9 p.m. The Ferris wheel opens early for Stillwater residents. "We wanted to give locals a sneak peak," Buettner said.
2. Saturday, 10 a.m. The gates open, the weigh-off starts and Lars Carlson & the Secondhand Hipsters take the stage.
3. Saturday, 12:30–2:30 p.m. Joe Flip Band plays.
4. Saturday, 1–4 p.m. Chili cook-off tasting with local restaurants. This is a ticketed event; general admission is free.
5. Saturday, 3 p.m. The weigh-off closes, and Jacuzzi Puma plays until 5.
6. Saturday, 5:30 p.m. The first pumpkin drop. Free & Easy Band follows from 6 to 8.
7. Sunday, 10 a.m. Marv & Kaat open the day. PK Mayo Band follows at 12:30.
8. Sunday, 11:30 a.m. The kids' costume parade lines up at the stage and moves through the vendor market.
9. Sunday, noon. Battle to Paddle.
10. Sunday, 2:30 p.m. The regatta on the St. Croix.
11. Sunday, 5:30 p.m. The final drop.

The Bayport Legion runs the beer garden, and you can carry drinks anywhere in the event area. The vendor market has food trucks and non-food booths, and the kids' area has free activities plus ticketed inflatables.

Getting there on a warm weekend

McLemore pointed to a forecast high of 82 on Saturday and 77 on Sunday. "It could be a record-warm year for us," she said. "I certainly expect big crowds."

Several familiar downtown spots won't be available. The festival FAQ says parking lots 4, 5, 9 and 11 are inside the event area. Free shuttles run from Stillwater Middle School and the Bayport Legion, with a downtown stop at US Bank at 2nd and Chestnut. They loop about every 15 to 20 minutes, starting at 10 a.m. both days and running until 9 p.m. Saturday and about 7 p.m. Sunday.

If you'd like a ride without the weekend crowd, the Friday resident preview is the quietest time Big Eli will run.

The pumpkins keep going after Sunday

Harvest Fest is the biggest pumpkin weekend in town, but there's more on the October calendar.

• October 9–30: The 9th Annual Haunted History Trolley Tour runs from River Siren Brewing, per Discover Stillwater's event calendar.
• October 18: The Big Carve at Lift Bridge Brewery, a week after the regatta.
• October 22: Courthouse by Candlelight tours at the Historic Courthouse, 101 W. Pine St., at 7, 7:40 and 8:30 p.m. Admission is $10, according to the Washington County Library calendar.
• October 29, 3–7 p.m.: The Stillwater Public Works Department's Trunk or Treat, listed in the city's Fall 2026 newsletter.
• October 31, 4–10 p.m.: The Stillwater Halloween Bar Crawl covers seven bars, with check-in at Matt's Basement from 2 to 4 p.m. or Portside from 4 to 6 p.m.

After 1902 and 1904, the Ferris wheel took more than a century of promises and a ten-year search by festival organizers to reach downtown. This weekend it stands at the tip of Mulberry Point, over the scale, the river and the crane.

If you ride Big Eli this weekend and start thinking about what your corner of Stillwater looks like as a long-term home, we'd love to hear about it, with no pressure and no timeline. Elisia Drewelow and the Minnesota Home Girls team are happy to talk over coffee whenever it suits you, including evenings and weekends after the pumpkins come down.