Pumpkins, Goats, and Old-Fashioned Games on North Perry Road
By mid-morning on a cool October Saturday, the grounds of the A.W. Perry Homestead Museum tend to fill with a particular kind of energy — kids sprinting toward a petting zoo, parents lining up at a face-painting station, the smell of something baked drifting from a vendor table. That scene returns this weekend when the City of Carrollton hosts its annual Perry Pumpkin Patch on October 10, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., at 1509 N. Perry Road.
Admission is free.
What Happens on the Grounds
The event spreads across both the A.W. Perry Homestead Museum property and the adjacent Pearl Perry Gravley Park, both of which are decorated for the fall season. The setup leans deliberately old-fashioned: classic games that don’t require a screen, photo-op stations positioned around the museum grounds, and a general atmosphere that rewards wandering.
For younger visitors, the petting zoo tends to be the first stop and often the last. Face painting runs throughout the morning. Children’s crafts give families a reason to slow down and sit for a while. Vendors fill in the spaces between, offering the kind of handmade and specialty goods that are harder to find at a chain store.
The combination makes the event function less like a ticketed attraction and more like a neighborhood gathering that happens to have a lot going on.
Why the Perry Homestead Works for This
The A.W. Perry Homestead Museum is one of the more distinctly Carrollton places in the city. The property carries the name of one of the area’s early settler families, and the museum grounds reflect that history in their layout and preserved structures. Pairing a fall festival with that setting gives the Perry Pumpkin Patch a grounding that a parking-lot event simply doesn’t have.
Pearl Perry Gravley Park, which adjoins the museum, extends the usable space considerably. Families who arrive early tend to spread out across both areas, which keeps the event from feeling crowded even as attendance builds toward midday.
North Perry Road sits in a part of Carrollton that doesn’t always draw residents from the city’s southern and western neighborhoods, but the Pumpkin Patch has a way of pulling people across zip codes. The free admission removes the hesitation that a ticketed event might create.
A Saturday Already Busy with City Programming
October 10 is a notably full day in Carrollton. That same evening, beginning at 6 p.m. and running until 9 p.m., Carrollton Parks and Recreation shifts back to the Perry Museum for the Night Sky Celebration — a separate free event featuring a bird walk, blacklight mothing, education talks from Environmental Services, and reptile and amphibian walks. The two events don’t overlap, which means families who attend the afternoon Pumpkin Patch could reasonably return to the same location a few hours later for something entirely different in character.
Earlier that same morning, the Carrollton Farmers Market runs its regular Saturday hours from 8 a.m. to noon at Historic Downtown Carrollton Square on S. Broadway Street. For residents building a full October Saturday around free, local programming, the day offers more options than most weekends manage.
The Broader October Rhythm
The Pumpkin Patch fits inside a stretch of October in which Carrollton’s parks and recreation programming runs at a high frequency. The Sounds on the Square music series occupies select Friday evenings at the downtown gazebo. The Halloween Critter Hunt and Downtown Delights land on October 24. The Mother-Son Monster Mash follows that same evening at Creekview High School.
Taken together, the month represents a deliberate effort by the city to keep public spaces active and accessible without charging residents for the privilege. The Perry Pumpkin Patch is an early anchor in that sequence — a daytime, family-centered event that sets a relaxed tone for everything that follows.
Getting There
The A.W. Perry Homestead Museum is located at 1509 N. Perry Road in Carrollton. The event runs October 10 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. No registration appears to be required, and there is no admission fee. Parking and additional details are available through the City of Carrollton Parks and Recreation department.
