Nachusa Grasslands Fall Festival

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Saturday, September 19, 2026
​10 am to 4 pm

Nachusa Grasslands Visitor Center
2075 Lowden Road, ​Franklin Grove, IL 61031​

• This annual event is open to the public.
• Gates open at 10 am.
• Parking is $5 per car.
• Donations will be accepted at the Welcome Pavilion and Bison Tours Tent.
• No Rain Date

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Activities at the Site
10 am to 4 pm

Riding Prairie Tours — Look for Bison
Departing from 10:15 am to 3 pm​​

• You will ride on a trailer through the preserve.
• LOW MOBILITY. Visitors with low mobility must be able to walk to the path entrance, ride a UTV to the fence gate, and then climb a ramp or stairs into a trailer.
• Finding the bison is not guaranteed, as they roam where they please.
• The last tour will leave at about 3 pm, so please get in line before 2:45 pm.

Guided Hiking Tours
Departing from 10:30 am to 3 pm​

• Meet at the Hiking Tours Tent at least 5 minutes before the scheduled departure..
• Experienced guides will lead walking tours of Nachusa's prairies, woodlands, and wetlands.
• Shuttled tours will drop you off and pick you up at a place on the preserve and then return you to the festival site.​
• Sturdy shoes and long pants are recommended for the hiking tours, as most are off trail with hills.

Prairie Hiking Tour Descriptions

Discovery Tent

• Hands-on and noses ready! Touch animal fur, bison bones, and fossils. Smell leaves and flowers. See how seeds travel or observe skulls found at the preserve. Learn how Indigenous Peoples used parts of a bison—we have objects made from hide, bone, hooves, and horns.

Self-guided Option

• Explore our Visitor Center Plant ID Walking Path. This self-guided option allows you to set your own pace and enjoy the freedom of discovering nature on your own schedule.

Food & Drinks

• Catering by Headon's Fine Meat food truck
• There are choices available for omnivores, vegetarians, & vegans.
• Kettlecorn
  September 16. Please note: The kettle corn vendor will not be at the event this year due to unforeseen circumstances.
  

Discovery Tent

• Northern Illinois Raptor Rehab & Education Live Birds of Prey Program

Music

• Enjoy live music by Mike Crowe in the dining tent.

​Shuttle

• Shuttle Service from the parking lot to the Visitor Center by Gene and Diane Rod

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​Friends of Nachusa Grasslands T-Shirts
Upland Sandpiper
​$15.00 Youth and Adult Short-Sleeved
$20.00 Long-Sleeved

The shirts are made in the U.S. from U.S. grown, organic, naturally dyed cotton and printed with water-based inks at Barrel Maker Printing in Chicago. 

Moving to more sustainably made t-shirts is important to us. They are more expensive to produce than our previous shirts, so we've had to increase our prices, but we still sell them at the cost of production, which means we make no profit off them. We just want to have cool shirts to share with you.

Upland Sandpiper (Bartramia longicauda)
In the 1970s, the whistling call of an upland sandpiper made prairie enthusiasts Dot and Doug Wade pull their car over to look in the pastures we now call Nachusa Grasslands. Their encounter with this elusive bird eventually led The Nature Conservancy to purchase Nachusa’s original 850 acres in 1986, which have now expanded to over 4,000 acres. The last documented time an upland sandpiper was seen at Nachusa was in 1997. These Illinois state-endangered birds prefer the shorter prairies that are maintained at Nachusa through bison grazing and prescribed fires, so we hope that restoration efforts will someday lure them back. A team of researchers from the University of Illinois Chicago recently used audio recorders to monitor migrating birds and identified the call of the upland sandpiper flying over the preserve. The next step in their research is to attempt playing calls to encourage the birds to land and use the habitat at Nachusa.

All posted plans are subject to change.

UPDATED 08/2026