Destination Mansfield - Richland County

10/10/2026

Today’s Fall Festival at Ohio Bird Sanctuary had a very special feature ! 🦅

10/10/2026

Boo! Trick-or-treat season has arrived in Mansfield - Richland County. 🎃

Today kicks things off with the Lexington Boo Bash and the Richland Outreach Center Trunk or Treat, and there’s plenty more to come.

From a Touch-a-Truck trunk-or-treat and Fright Night Frenzy at Buckeye Imagination Museum to community trick-or-treat nights and Halloween parades, families have plenty of chances to dress up, head out and fill those candy buckets all month long.

Save this post, share it with your trick-or-treat crew, and start planning your Halloween stops around Richland County.

10/09/2026

Scarecrows are supposed to keep the birds away. At Kingwood Center Gardens, they’re bringing the crowds in! 🍂

And when one of the scarecrows IS a crow, you have to wonder who’s supposed to be scared of whom!

Our Destination Mansfield - Richland County team stopped by Kingwood to help judge this year’s creative collection of scarecrows. Some are clever, some are funny, some are a little spooky, and all are worth a stroll through the gardens to see for yourself.

And there’s more fall fun just around the corner!

🎃 October 14 & 15 | Community Pumpkin Carving
Grab a pumpkin and help create the magic of The Great Pumpkin Glow! Pumpkins and carving supplies are provided from noon to 8 p.m., while supplies last.

✨ October 16–18 | The Great Pumpkin Glow
See more than 1,000 glowing jack-o’-lanterns, wander through the colorful Fluorescent Forest and enjoy food trucks and fall festivities after dark.

Carve a pumpkin next week, then come back and see it glowing among hundreds of others!

📍 Kingwood Center Gardens | Mansfield, Ohio

🎟️ Great Pumpkin Glow tickets: KingwoodCenter.org

10/09/2026

Sprint cars tonight. Feathered friends tomorrow. Bogart and Bacall by evening. Haunted events all weekend.

Here are a few ways to spend October 9–11 in Mansfield and Richland County:

🏁 FRIDAY: Buckeye Brawl at Mansfield Speedway
The World of Outlaws returns for the first time since 1981. Grandstands open at 4 PM; hot laps at 6:30 PM, with racing to follow.

🍂 SATURDAY: Ohio Bird SanctuaryFall Festival
Bring the family to 3774 Orweiler Road from 10 AM–4 PM. Admission is $20 per car at the gate.

🎬 SATURDAY: Hollywood Returns to Malabar Farm State Park Tour the Big House free from 5–7 PM, then watch Key Largo in the Main Barn at 7 PM at Malabar Farm State Park in Lucas.

🎶 SATURDAY: Bluegrass Octoberfest at The Mothership Four live acts, an outdoor stage, food trucks and a b**r garden at 136 Marion Avenue. Doors open at 5 PM.

🧛 FRIDAY–SUNDAY: Dracula: A Horror Story at Theatre 166 Renaissance Theatre
Friday at 7:30 PM, Saturday at 7:30 and 10:30 PM, and Sunday at 2:30 PM.

Which stop belongs on your weekend calendar?

10/08/2026

The best fall outings come with a few feathered friends. 🍂

Ohio Bird Sanctuary’s Fall Festival returns Saturday, October 10, bringing its most popular seasonal event to this wooded retreat along the Clear Fork River.

Bring the family, meet the sanctuary’s resident birds and spend part of your Saturday surrounded by nature.

10 AM–4 PM
Ohio Bird Sanctuary
3774 Orweiler Road, Mansfield

Admission is $20 per car, paid at the gate. No preregistration needed.

Which bird do you always hope to see when you visit?

10/07/2026

Mansfield Speedway’s final race of the season brings the World of Outlaws back to the dirt this Friday. 🏁

Sheldon Haudenschild’s NOS Energy Drink Buckeye Brawl, Round 2, marks the World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series’ first appearance at Mansfield Speedway since 1981.

Bring your racing crew for one last night of sprint-car action this season.

Friday, October 9
Grandstands open at 4 PM
Hot laps at 6:30 PM, with racing to follow
400 Crall Road East, Mansfield

Adult general admission: $40 online before race day or $45 on race day. Ages 6–12: $10. Ages 5 and under: free.

Who’s joining you in the grandstands?

10/07/2026

Before it was a brewery, it was a mortuary. 👻🍺

This Sunday, Ales from the Afterlife returns to The Phoenix Brewing Company.

Step inside the historic 1914 mortuary-turned-brewery for a guided tour filled with hauntings, legends, local lore and stories from some of the building’s lesser-seen spaces.

Your tour begins with a pint of liquid courage, and you’ll leave with a branded glass to take home.

2026 tour dates:
Oct. 11
Oct. 18
Oct. 25
Oct. 31

Tours are 21+ and pre-registration is required. Regular tours are $20 per person. Halloween tours are $30 and include a few additional treats.

Wear comfortable shoes, bring a flashlight if you’d like, and be ready to explore Mansfield’s most spirited brewery.

Registration: phoenixbrewing.com/tours

10/07/2026

Blue sky ahead. White clouds drifting by. For a pilot, there may be no better view. ✈️

And it’s a fitting welcome to the new Frank P. Lahm Aviation Museum inside the The Ohio State Reformatory.

Step beneath the clouds and into generations of Mansfield and Richland County aviation history, told through the people, military service, innovation and artifacts that helped shape our story in the skies.

10/07/2026

Mansfield’s aviation history has officially landed at the The Ohio State Reformatory. ✈️

The new Frank P. Lahm Aviation Museum officially opened today, bringing more than a century of Richland County aviation history under one very recognizable roof.

The museum tells the stories of the people who helped put Mansfield on the aviation map, from Brigadier Gen. Frank P. Lahm, known as the nation’s first military aviator, to local pilots, military leaders, innovators and families whose contributions reached far beyond Richland County.

And there is a lot to discover.

Flight jackets and uniforms. Historic photographs and documents. Stories of pioneering aviators. Artifacts with deep local connections. And eventually, hundreds of model aircraft that are still being carefully added to the collection.

The museum is also part of a much bigger story happening inside the Reformatory. Visitors can now explore aviation history alongside the Prison Museum, State Prison Museum, Shawshank Museum, Frank Darabont Gallery and North Central Ohio Industrial Museum.

📍 Ohio State Reformatory, Mansfield
✈️ Frank P. Lahm Aviation Museum
🕙 Open during regular OSR hours, 10 AM–4 PM daily
🎟️ Admission is included with an Ohio State Reformatory tour ticket.

A remarkable piece of Mansfield history has a new home, and today we were there to celebrate its beginning.

10/06/2026

What if one October weekend could take you from 1,000 glowing jack-o’-lanterns to sprint cars flying around a dirt track, then straight into one of Ohio’s most infamous prisons after dark?

That’s October in Mansfield - Richland County.

The next few weeks are packed with the kind of experiences that make fall worth a road trip.

🎃 Walk Kingwood Center Gardens after dark as more than 1,000 carved pumpkins light the paths during The Great Pumpkin Glow.

🏁 Feel the grandstands come alive when the World of Outlaws Sprint Cars return to Mansfield Speedway for the Buckeye Brawl.

🩸 Step inside the towering stone walls of the Historic The Ohio State Reformatory after dark for Blood Prison.

🧛 Sit close to the action as Dracula: A Horror Story takes over the intimate Theatre 166 (Renaissance Theatre)

🌙 Ride into the hills of Malabar Farm State Park, then continue on foot for eerie stories, local legends and a Haunted Hike through Pleasant Valley.

And that’s only part of October.

There are fiber artists and handmade finds, CrowFest, murder mysteries, family Halloween events, trick-or-treat nights and plenty of reasons to make a day, a night or an entire weekend of it.

Your October plans might need another weekend.

See what’s happening throughout Mansfield-Richland County in our October Events & Experiences guide: destinationmansfield.com/blog/october-events-experiences

Fall traditions, spooky adventures and seasonal experiences take over Mansfield and Richland County this October. October brings a little bit of everything ...