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Halloween Events and Haunted Places in Portland
Embrace the season’s spooky spirit with an array of annual festivities and haunted places.
The Pacific Northwest is rife with spooky lore and tales of things that go bump in the night. Halloween is the prime time to check out Portland’s many mysterious spots, paranormal activity, haunted houses, corn mazes, and spirited walking tours.
Portland’s Annual Halloween Events
Returning to the Tualatin Commons every October, The West Coast Giant Pumpkin Regatta is a cherished local event where costumed racers pilot gigantic gourds through a watercourse on Tualatin Commons lake. The event kicks off with a giant pumpkin parade and weigh-off, followed by a full day of pumpkin paddlers plying the shallow lake in 1,000-pound pumpkin boats.
The Oregon Zoo celebrates the spooky season with Howloween. This fun and safe Halloween tradition invites costumed trick-or-treaters to learn about healthy habitats for wildlife, listen to keepers talk about their animals and watch feedings.
The Oddities & Curiosities Expo showcases hand-selected vendors, dealers, artists and small businesses from all over the country with all things weird. Stroll around the Oregon Convention Center while shopping for items such as taxidermy, preserved specimens, original artwork and horror/Halloween-inspired pieces.
The Spirit of Halloweentown, a fun, family-friendly celebration of the season’s spookiest holiday in St. Helen’s Old Town District. Expect costume contests, trick-or-treating, haunted town tours and scarecrows galore (the town even lights a “Great Pumpkin” in the city plaza).
Haunted Houses
Portland likes its scares as much as any other city and has the haunted houses to prove it. Some of the biggest annual options include Underhill Haunted House at the Moda Center and The Fear PDX Haunted House. Oaks Amusement Park also boasts Oregon’s only scream park, Oaks Park Scaregrounds. You can walk through haunted attractions and then hop on a roller coaster for even more screams.
Haunted Portland
One of the city’s largest and best-kept pioneer-era graveyards, Lone Fir Cemetery serves as the final resting place for 25,000 souls — believer or not, that’s pretty good odds for spirit-spotting and ghost stories. McMenamin’s White Eagle Saloon claims to play host to several apparitions, from a prostitute named Rose to the souls of unwitting residents kidnapped via Portland’s infamous Shanghai Tunnels. Arguably, Portland’s most famous — and persistent — phantom, “Nina,” has bedeviled the same spot for more than a century at Old Town Pizza.
Spooky Bars
For screams and giggles anytime of year, step into the adjoining Bar and Clown Room of Funhouse Lounge, grab a beer or a shot and admire the dozens upon dozens of (semi-creepy) clown portraits that line the walls. Grab your goth friends and get ready to dance at Portland’s premier horror-themed bar, The Coffin Club. At Creepy’s, a bar in Central Eastside, find circus monkeys clapping sporadically, questionable taxidermy, and clown portraits and trinkets scattered about. In Old Town check into the Overlook Hotel at HallwayPDX, The Shining-themed karaoke bar or head over to Raven’s Manor, a haunted manor-themed bar that serves small bites and cocktails nearly every day of the year.
Halloween Activities & Events
West Coast Giant Pumpkin Regatta
This annual race series consists of paddlers piloting a gaggle of gigantic gourds through a watercourse.
The Corn Maize on Sauvie Island
The Corn Maize, located on Sauvie Island north of Portland, offers visitors eight acres of physical and mental challenges in a cornfield.
Pumpkin Patches in and Near Portland
Get swept up in that autumnal feeling at these friendly farms just outside of Portland with U-pick pumpkin patches and fun family activities like hayrides, corn mazes, petting zoos and festive autumn food and drink.
Haunted Tours
Looking for safety in numbers? The Haunted Pub Crawl from BeerQuest unites fun-loving specter-seekers on a tour of Old Town Portland. With Portland Ghost Tours, you can also explore some of the most ghost-infested places. Spend A Night with Ghosts in the Nob Hill area with its cobblestone streets and beautiful 19th-century buildings; this district is steeped in history and is purportedly home to a sizable ghost population. The Lone Fir Cemetery Historical Tours, offered by the Friends of Lone Fir Cemetery, teach about asylum patients, shanghai captains and ‘fancy ladies.’
Halloween Stores and Costume Shops
You know the Halloween season is upon you when you pass the Grim Reaper waving a sign for the Spirit Halloween, the superstore stocking every Halloween party in America. Dressing up in Portland isn’t limited to one season. Whether you’re attending a Halloween party, mermaid parade, superhero run or Renaissance fair, these eccentric Portland costume shops have you covered.
Portland Costume Shops
Find the perfect pieces to complete your Halloween look.
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