DeKalb Cornfest

DeKalb, IL · Food & Drink

When: August 27–29, 2027
Where: Downtown DeKalb, Lincoln Highway · DeKalb · IL
Cost: Not confirmed
Status: Confirmed from the organizer's published schedule

DeKalb's Cornfest fills Lincoln Highway downtown with a free corn boil, agricultural exhibits, and one of the last free live-music festivals left in Illinois. It began in the late 1970s and now draws vendors and touring acts to the college town for the last weekend of August. The 2026 edition marks its 49th year.

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The history within reach

DeKalb Cornfestsame spot
DeKalb's Cornfest fills Lincoln Highway downtown with a free corn boil, agricultural exhibits, and one of the last free live-music festivals left in Illinois.
Sycamore Pumpkin Festival5.2 mi
Sycamore's Pumpkin Festival began in 1956 when a local resident nicknamed Mr.
A whaling captain's grain elevator at La Fox18 mi
Lemuel Potter had commanded a whaling ship before he came inland, and in 1868 he and his brother in law Henry Barker put this elevator up beside the Galena and Chicago Union tracks to load Kane County grain for Chicago.
Garfield Farm, an 1846 teamster inn on the wheat road to Chicago18 mi
Timothy Garfield bought a settler's 1835 claim in 1841 and took travellers in at the log house, then built a brick inn in 1846 for the teamsters hauling grain between the Fox Valley farms and Chicago.
Corron Farm, claimed in 1835 and never broken up18 mi
Robert Corron was one of the first settlers in Kane County and claimed this ground in 1835, buying it off the government in pieces through the 1840s.