Most of Morton Grove's October Happens at Prairie View Park, and Its Renovation Bids Are Due October 6

From mid-October on, Morton Grove's fall calendar is held at one address. Four of the season's dated community events take place at Prairie View Park and Community Center, 6834 Dempster Street. They fall on three Friday and Saturday stretches in a row, from October 16 through October 30. In the same weeks, a public bid listing for "Prairie View Park Enhancements" asks contractors to submit bids by October 6 and lists a start date of December 7, 2026.

If that schedule holds, the park that hosts this year's pumpkin carving, dog costume contest, market and Halloween fest will be either a work site or a rebuilt park by next October. The best way to plan this season starts with where each event happens.

Two Parks Hold the Whole Season

The season has a clear shape. Harrer Park hosts the first weekend and the final event in November. Linne Woods carries a quieter, all-month option. The weeks in between belong to Prairie View. The Morton Grove Park District events page shows Halloween Family Fest at "Prairie View Park" in its calendar, but the event's own page sends families into the Prairie View Community Center. Both use the 6834 Dempster address, so the difference only matters for where you walk in.

What Fills Prairie View Before the Work Starts

Each Prairie View event serves a different group, which explains why the site stays busy for three straight weekends.

The Great Family Pumpkin Carve-Out on Friday, October 16, covers the supplies. The Park District lists pumpkins, carving tools, stencils, music and treats, and it encourages costumes. The next morning, Happy Howl-O-Ween turns the park over to dogs. The event has an agility course, a photo area, a dog trick contest and a costume contest with prizes for Funniest, Scariest, Cutest, Most Creative and Best Dog/Owner team. Morton Grove Animal Hospital and Dog Obedience Group LLC sponsor it, and every dog must be healthy and current on shots.

On Saturday, October 24, the Morton Grove Chamber's Autumn Market Faire fills the Community Center from 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. with more than 70 vendor tables. The season closes on Friday, October 30, with Halloween Family Fest. It runs three hours and includes games, a DJ dance party, crafts, inflatables, a tractor ride, stories read by the Library, s'mores and face painting. Koala's Kitchen is the food vendor.

The registration rules differ from event to event, which is easy to miss:

• Halloween Family Fest opened to Morton Grove residents first, and non-resident registration begins October 1. Families with out-of-town cousins or friends from a neighboring suburb should register by then. The event is for ages 3 to 12.
• The Pumpkin Carve-Out needs only one registration per family, at $25 or $32, under program code 460130-02.
• Happy Howl-O-Ween is $8 or $10 under code 460118-01, and leashes can be no longer than 6 feet.
• Kite Day at Harrer Park is free and open to the public.

What the Bid Documents Say Comes Next

Prairie View's renovation was announced in January, when the Park District said it had been selected for a $600,000 state OSLAD grant to develop park and outdoor recreation space there. Journal & Topics covered the award on January 15, 2026, but neither the release nor the article listed amenities.

The planning work started earlier. The Park District held a Prairie View neighborhood meeting on July 9, 2025, at 6 p.m., and asked for public input on renovation concepts and playground options. At the April 15, 2026 board meeting, staff reported meeting with Upland Design about the renovation. The bid listing, first published September 17 and updated September 23, sends contractor questions to Upland Design. It describes the work as renovation of a playground, park and athletic field, with these items in the scope:

• New playground equipment
• Engineered wood fiber and poured-in-place surfacing
• Concrete paving
• A picnic shelter
• Baseball infield mix
• Fencing and landscaping

That list fits a park that already holds a playground, a ball field and open lawn, and it fits the parts of Prairie View that Howl-O-Ween and the Halloween fest use each October. Some details are not public yet. The listing gives no completion date, and no contractor had been awarded the job as of this writing. No final master plan drawing or named playground model has been published. The December 7 start comes from the bid listing and could change once bids are reviewed.

Morton Grove's most recent playground project gives a rough sense of the timing. At National Park, removal of the old equipment was scheduled to begin February 27, and the Park District set a grand reopening and rededication for Saturday, June 27, 2026, with a brand-new playground among the new features. The April board minutes had that project on schedule to finish by June 15. That project took about four months from removal to ribbon. Prairie View's scope is larger, with a shelter, paving and an athletic field on top of the playground, so the National Park timeline is a reference point and not a forecast.

Harrer Park and Linne Woods Stay the Same

The renovation does not affect the rest of the season. Harrer Park hosts the opening weekend, with the Family Glow Walk on the evening of Friday, October 2, and Kite Day all day Saturday, October 3. Harrer also gets the post-Halloween event. The Village's Morton Grove Pumpkin Smash is set for Saturday, November 7, from 9:00 a.m. to noon, and the Village says more information is coming.

Linne Woods offers the one fall activity with no fixed time. All of October, the Morton Grove Public Library's StoryWalk in the Woods places pages of To Catch a Ghost along the forest preserve trail, so a family can read the book while walking it. It works on a weekday afternoon, between the weekend events, or on a morning when the Prairie View lot is full.

When Prairie View goes under construction, these will be the fall traditions that keep their usual settings.

The Overlapping Saturday and Other October Timing

Saturday, October 24, is the most crowded day of the month. The Autumn Market Faire runs 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. on Dempster. The Morton Grove Fire Department's annual open house runs 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. at Fire Station #4, 6250 Lincoln Avenue. That leaves three shared hours. If you want to do both, the morning hour before the open house starts is the cleanest time for the market.

Two Village schedules also run through the season. The Village's 2026 fall leaf pick-up program runs October 19 through December 4, and the Village says exact dates will shift with weather and leaf drop. Anyone taking the Milwaukee District North line should know that Metra's platform construction at the Morton Grove station, 8501 Lehigh Avenue, began Monday, August 3, and is expected to continue through Spring 2027. Metra's MD-N page asks riders to allow extra travel time and use caution near the work area.

So the station work runs into next spring, and the Prairie View work is scheduled to start before the leaf pickups end. This October is the last one before both projects overlap.

If you live near Prairie View and want to know how a rebuilt park down the street fits into what your home could sell for next year, Victoria Stein can walk you through a current, Morton Grove-specific picture. Request a Home Valuation, and we will start with your block and the park at the end of it.