CANYON CITY — Scores of kids and parents dressed in their spookiest (and silliest) attire turned out on a soggy Halloween night with hopes of leaving Humbolt Street with full candy bags.

This year’s festivities on the residential street in Canyon City were a little different than in years past, featuring an accompanying trunk-or-treat put on by Grant Union High School sports teams and other community members in the Humbolt Elementary School parking lot.

Before heading to Humbolt Street, many trick-or-treaters stopped off at Madden Realty in John Day for a full-sized candy bar and a walk through the adjacent haunted house. Parents were provided with warm apple cider to help cut the chill of the wet night ahead of them.

Holding strong

Every Halloween, Humbolt Street in Canyon City is closed to through traffic as residents welcome a sea of costumed and candy-starved children and teens. 

Nationwide, trick-or-treating is on the decline as trunk-or-treating increases in popularity and concerns about child safety loom in the national consciousness.

A USA Today poll conducted last Halloween found that 74% of the over 17,000 respondents said they had fewer trick-or-treaters at their homes in 2023. USA Today reported that smart home company Vivint observed a similar trend, classifying trick-or-treating activity as low in 2023 when surveying over 150,000 doorbell camera clips from across the nation.

Vivint did say that there wasn’t a good way to compare camera clip statistics from 2022 and 2023 due to changes in the way the company collects data, however. Still, the emerging trend seems to point to a decline in trick-or-treating activities.

But on Humbolt Street, homeowners are doing their best to buck that trend.

Community presence

This year’s trunk-or-treat at Humbolt Elementary was organized by the Grant Union Jr./Sr/ High School Student Council, who invited all the sports teams and school clubs to decorate a car trunk and pass out treats. Unlike past trunk-or-treats at the school, this was all put together by the student council.

“It’s always been organized by other people,” Student Body President Mallory Lusco said. “We were originally going to do it at GU this year, but then we decided a few days ago we should move it down Humbolt, because that’s just easier for all the families that already go down to Humbolt (Street).”

Lusco said there were seven or eight cars along the main drive, with some firefighters at the other end. The Grant Union wrestling team, track team, girls soccer team and football team, along with the school’s Future Business Leaders of America chapter, all had runs at the trunk-or-treat.

The Canyon City Fire Department being on the scene with music and their own cache of treats for trunk-or-treat participants was a welcome coincidence, and not something that Lusco and the student council organized.

“We had been setting up, and then they were there, so it just happened to work out,“ Lusco said.

Right around 200 kids made their way through the various trunk-or-treat stations, according to Lusco. That success sparked a desire by the Grant Union student council to continue the practice, although next year’s event will likely be at Grant Union rather than the elementary school just off Humbolt Street.

“We’d love to do this again,” Lusco said. “We just want to have a safe trick-or-treating environment and kind of show that Grant Union is involved in the community, that we care and that we’re there.”

It’s all in the numbers

Andy Radinovich, affectionately known as “Little Andy,” has handed out candy to trick-or-treaters from his father, ”Big Andy’s” home at 324 N. Humbolt St. since 1967. According to Little Andy, Big Andy has left a lasting mark on the Humbolt trick-or-treating route, suggesting many years ago that the street be closed while kids are out going door to door.

That practice continues to this day.

Radinovich tracks the number of Halloween visitors he gets, typically seeing around 300 a year. This year, Radinovich’s count was a healthy 228 during the Eagle’s check-in, with a final tally of 330.

While trunk-or-treats have begun to take the place of door-to-door trick-or-treating since sprouting up during the pandemic, this year’s event at Humbolt Elementary was more complementary than competitive. Radinovich said there have been modestly sized trunk-or-treats at Humbolt in the past, but this year’s may have been the best he’s seen.

“It was the biggest turnout (and) they had music and stuff,” he said. “I would say this year was the best year that they’ve had over there for their trunk-or-treating.”

Radinovich said he’s seen changes in the way kids trick-or-treat these days. Gone are the times when parents would simply release their kids, unsupervised, into neighborhoods to go from house to house on Halloween.

Those days have been replaced by parents largely walking the trick-or-treating route with their children. Radinovich points to a heightened awareness of child safety for the switch in habits.

“When we were kids … we just went. Our parents didn’t go with us. They didn’t have to,” he said. “But now, you know, it’s a scarier world out there than what it was when we were kids.”

Despite that, Radinnovich said, Halloween is his favorite time of the year. Seeing old friends and the costumes of Grant County youth, while giving them a friendly hard time, are all things to look forward to as October nears its end.

“It’s the most enjoyable,” he said. “You don’t have to spend a bunch of money, like you do on Christmas.”