Raw States
Spoon River Valley Scenic Drive
Lewistown, IL · Arts & Culture
- When
- October 3–11, 2026
- Where
- Spoon River Drive Visitor Center, 222 S Main St, Lewistown · Lewistown · IL
- Cost
- Not confirmed
- Status
- Approximate: based on past editions, not announced yet
The Spoon River Valley Scenic Drive strings craft and antique vendors across nineteen towns along Fulton County's Spoon River each fall, and has run since 1968. The festival spans the first two full weekends of October, drawing over a hundred thousand visitors for harvest food and fall color. It is central Illinois's largest arts and crafts event outside the metro areas.
The history within reach
- Spoon River Valley Scenic Drivesame spot
The Spoon River Valley Scenic Drive strings craft and antique vendors across nineteen towns along Fulton County's Spoon River each fall, and has run since 1968.
Pekin has called itself the Marigold Capital of the World since the 1970s, after Senator Everett Dirksen's unsuccessful campaign to make the marigold the national flower.
He came off a flatboat at twenty-two, failed as a shopkeeper, split rails, ran the post office, taught himself law and left six years later for Springfield.
A vaudeville town of the right size in the right place, so booking agents used it to find out whether an act worked on ordinary audiences before spending money on the cities.
Corn, coal, river and rail in one place made this the largest distilling town on earth, and for years Peoria County paid more federal liquor tax than any other district in the country.