I grew up in St. Helens, Oregon. It’s a small town on the Columbia River about an hour from Portland, and right on Highway 30. There’s not much to see, and most people just pass it by without ever giving it a second thought. But we have one claim to fame – Halloweentown was shot in our Olde Towne district.
Made for the Disney Channel in 1998, the film follows Marney and her two siblings as they explore the town where Halloween was born. It’s a magical borough of ghosts, vampires, and all manner of extras weighed down by heavy prosthetics. The movie’s short, sweet and saw repeat airings during the spooky season.
Every October, my hometown celebrates this bit of pop culture history with a month-long “Spirit of Halloweentown” event. In past years, it’s been a humble event. Local businesses put up scarecrows, a replica of the iconic Jack-O-Lantern from the movie sits in front of City Hall. Costume parties and parades bring the community together
But this season has been different. Friends talked about plans to visit St. Helens over the weekend. Talk in the Emerald newsroom went around about “the real Halloweentown.” It blew my mind that my hometown was being talked up like a legitimate tourist destination. This small celebration has been going on for years, yet it’s never been a major tourist attraction until this year. On Friday, October 10th, over 10,000 people flocked to the city for a pumpkin-lighting ceremony with the film’s star Kimberly J. Brown.
10,000 people visiting St. Helens is an insane prospect. It’s a city of just over 13,000 residents, with the Oldetown district rarely seeing business outside of occasional events. The small town square that once contained a whole town of monsters was overflowing with bodies eager to get a snapshot with a replica Jack-O-Lantern modeled after the film’s iconic centerpiece.
Last year this same event drew only 700 people, and little about the proceedings have changed. The pumpkin is large, but it feels like decoration and not a main attraction. Store-bought skeletons haunt hay bales, and a pine tree is painted black with a light purple garland. For a small-town spectacle, it’s perfectly charming. But it’s not a sight worth planning a weekend around. So what convinced UO students to brave a three-hour drive for what amounts to a seasonal Instagram selfie?
If you look at the timing, the invasion of college-age tourists makes sense. Halloweentown premiered 17 years ago, so the kids who grew up with the film are now old enough to feel nostalgic for it. Combined with the viral effect of social media, all it takes is a spark of awareness to light a nostalgic fire. It’s not often that we see the birth of a new holiday tradition, but it’s easy to see the children of late-’90s cable TV flocking back to St. Helens year over year to recapture that youthful moment.