Welcome to the Halloween Capital of the World

This celebration of Halloween began as a way to encourage children to avoid Halloween pranks and tricks and celebrate in a more appropriate, socially accepted way. It began on November 1, 1919 when citizens of Anoka woke up in the morning to pranks of epic proportions at the hands of some of the local youth. As the sun rose, community members were greeted by wagons parked precariously on rooftops, overturned outhouses, and cows roaming freely throughout downtown and inside the halls of the county jails. To prevent a similar debacle happening in the following years, the Halloween parade was born. By the 1930s, the festivities had expanded as had the attendance at the parades, as over 2,000 costumed children marched down Main Street and over 20,000 spectators lined the streets to partake in the festivities. In 1937, an ambitious 12-year-old named Harold Blair donned a sweater embellished with a Halloween Capital insignia and carried with him to Washington D.C. a proclamation naming Anoka the Halloween Capital of the World. This decades long celebration has occurred every year since, pausing only in 1942 and 1943 during World War II. 

The festivities during the Halloween season include activities like pillow fights, a kangaroo court, firework displays, royalty coronations, concerts, dances, window painting contests, house decorating contests, celebrity appearances, costume contests, style shows, races, and, in the 1960s, a snake dance that took long lines of participants in and out of area businesses and homes. There are also two different parades, one involving the children of the town donned in their Halloween contests, and the big parade they have on the afternoon the day before Halloween. They also have a Light up the Night Parade where the lights on Main Street are turned down low to showcase one-of-a-kind floats with lights.