In pockets of towering trees in one of Louisville’s oldest parks, a maniacal laugh set to electronic music echoes through the thick forest. It's a chorus fitting for one of the region’s most popular Halloween attractions: the Jack O’Lantern Spectacular at Iroquois Park.
These aren’t your average hollowed-out pumpkins on the front porch. About 5,000 jack-o’-lanterns with handcarved celebrity portraits, animals, cartoon characters and the standard silly faces illuminate the walking trail.
The pumpkin-palooza originated in Massachusetts in the 1980s. Travis Reckner’s father, John, and his family ran a small trail from their backyard with a few jack-o’-lanterns. Now, he’s the head of Passion for Pumpkins, the production company behind the Jack O’Lantern Spectacular — which also has shows in Minnesota and Rhode Island.
Ahead of opening night in Louisville, Reckner walked the trail before dawn to catch a glimpse of the pumpkins. He said he and the team have outdone themselves this year.
“God, I'm kind of overwhelmed right now,” he said. “Just in sensory overload taking this in for the first time. … I thank the pumpkin gods, because it really is magical.”
Carving masterpieces
Before the thousands of glowing gourds make it to the winding autumn trail, they all start at the pumpkin barn.
A month before the Jack O'Lantern Spectacular begins, 30 local artists turn a steel barn next to the trail into a studio. Fans blow to keep the pumpkins cool while the artists construct their masterpieces.
Alene Day, the studio director, started as a pumpkin carving artist here 10 years ago.
“The first thing we do when we pick out the image that we want to put, then you walk around the room, you try to find a pumpkin that suits the image that you picked,” she said.
All the pumpkins are locally grown at a farm in Mayfield and another in Georgetown. Depending on the weather conditions during harvest, some of the gourds can weigh up to 100 pounds.
The pumpkin artists call their work the “intricates” of the trail. Day said they will sculpt, paint, scrape and drill pumpkins throughout the month.
“You don't want to start carving into the pumpkins until right before they go out, because as soon as you carve them, they start to rot,” Day said. “It's really, really neat that you come walk the trail one day and come back a week later, and there will be all different intricate pumpkins out there.”
Day said she’ll create about 65 intricates this year, most of them portraits. For round one, she crafted a jack-o’-lantern depicting the late musician Sly Stone for the “in memoriam” part of the trail.
“I have a list of all the people who passed away so far in 2025, and I love the music [of] Sly and the Family Stone,” Day said. “So I picked out a couple images of him that I found online, and then I collaged them together.”
Each design is drawn with alcohol-based ink and smeared with cotton swabs and paintbrushes to map out finer details on the pumpkin. Day carved her pumpkins with tools that were crafted in the 1980s.
For artist Carrie Ketterman, some household items work best to carve out her design of Jiminy Cricket. Most of her designs are cartoon illustrations.
“I've got nails and screws that I will use to puncture the pumpkin when we get to carving, and it makes stars,” she said. “You've got these tools laying around the house and you never knew you could use them on a pumpkin.”
Artist Josh Bleecker shuffled pumpkins around the barn on rolling tables to complete finishing touches. Some artists may not have time to complete their pieces, Bleecker said, so other artists will often fill in.
He said it's a lot of work, but it's worth it to see the designs come to life on the trail.
“When you're waiting in line, you're somewhat in darkness and then you go in, and it's like you're transported to a new world,” Bleecker said. “And everything is glowing, everything is warm, everything is fun. And it's like you feel like a kid again.”
Ketterman said it's an unparalleled experience once the pumpkins leave the barn.
“You have to be here to experience it,” she said. “It's the darkness, the crunching of the leaves as you're walking through the trail, all the lights, all the glow of the pumpkins, just the magic of being here at night and getting to walk the trail.”
Exceeding expectations
This year's theme is “Jack's Pun-King Trail.” Witty one-liners like, “I mustache you a question,” follow a pumpkin parade of famous facial hair on characters like Mario and Luigi, Captain Hook and Yosemite Sam.
On opening weekend, the trail was packed tightly with visitors from all over the country.
Last year, 115,000 people attended the Jack O’Lantern Spectacular, with nearly half coming from outside of Louisville. Event officials expect a similar amount of visitors to make their way through the trail this year.
Jeremy and Shelby Thomas drove three hours from Richmond, Indiana, to visit the trail. It was Shelby's first time here, and she said she was blown away.
“I thought we would just see some, like, pumpkins on a trail, you know?” she said. “We would see little collections of pumpkins. I did not realize the detail that would be on these, the amount of pumpkins, the amount of people, just the overall vibe. When I say it’s exceeded all my expectations, it really has.”
The Jack O’Lantern Spectacular is the largest fundraiser for the Parks Alliance of Louisville, an organization that supports all 124 local parks.
Parks Alliance CEO Brooke Pardue said the joy and magic surrounding the event “feels like Christmas.”
“The energy around this show every year is just phenomenal,” she said. “And it's not just the guests. It's the artists, it's the team at the Parks Alliance. We love the show. We love the month of October.”
The trail opens every night at dusk through Nov. 2. Until then, artists will be carving away on more pumpkins in hopes of continuing to squash visitors’ expectations.
This story was produced by the Appalachia + Mid-South Newsroom, a collaboration between West Virginia Public Broadcasting, WPLN and WUOT in Tennessee, LPM, WEKU, WKMS and WKU Public Radio in Kentucky and NPR.
