Every October the West Side Nut Club organizes and sponsors a mammoth Fall Festival. This is a week-long gala on the west side along Franklin Street with free entertainment, carnival attractions, over 137 food booths, amateur talent competitions and on the last day, a huge parade. This event attracts over 200,000 people to the West Side & is considered to be one of the largest street festivals in the United States.
After three successful years of holding Halloween type Festivals, a handful of West Side businessmen decided, in 1921, to form an organization that would handle the duties of putting together successful Fall Festivals and “to initiate, promote, and support any and all movements which are for the betterment of the West Side of Evansville, Indiana; also for the betterment of Evansville as a whole…”
The first West Side Nut Club Fall Festival was billed as a Halloween Night, Halloween Carnival, masked ball and even one Nut Clubber compared it to the Mardi Gras. The event was a one night affair and consisted of a parade of costumed people that started at 8:00 p.m. followed by a Halloween Mask Ball lasting until 11:30. The crowd was estimated at 25,000. Cost of the project was $340.98 but was considered to be worth thousands of dollars to the West Side. The Nut Club assessed each member $10 to cover the debt.
