Williams County North Dakota North Dakota Chokecherry Festival
North Dakota had no official state fruit until a classroom of Williston sixth graders decided it should have one. Their persuasive letters to the Legislature became Senate Bill 2145, signed into law on March 29, 2007, and that August Williston celebrated the new symbol with the first North Dakota Chokecherry Festival. The festival that grew from that school assignment still fills a city park in Williston every August, to celebrate all things chokecherry and honour the children who made it happen, in the organisers’ own words.
This event is no county fair at all. It is a city festival in a public park, presented by the Williston Convention and Visitors Bureau together with the North Dakota Chokecherry Festival Committee, and it celebrates a state symbol rather than a harvest. A visitor expecting exhibit halls and judging rings will find something else entirely: running shoes and pancake syrup, car shows and wood shavings, a miniature train circling the park, and a contest to see who can spit a pit the farthest.
About the Festival
The North Dakota Chokecherry Festival, also styled the ND Chokecherry Festival in the same layers, is Williston’s August celebration of the chokecherry as the official state fruit. The two presenting bodies are kept separate here: the Williston Convention and Visitors Bureau, which publishes the festival’s pages and newsletters and is named first in the releases, and the North Dakota Chokecherry Festival Committee, for which no roster, chair or address is published.
Williston is the county seat of Williams County since 1891, and it is the festival’s town on the strength of the organisers’ own publications, not merely because seat and town coincide. The festival’s home in every layer from 2022 onward is Davidson Park, a city park in Williston, given here by name and town: its two published address forms, a corner description in one newsletter layer and a street address in another, are left unmerged, and neither is printed as the festival’s sole verified address.
Quick Facts
| Item | Detail |
| Event | North Dakota Chokecherry Festival |
| Town | Williston, the Williams County seat since 1891 |
| Venue | Davidson Park, Williston, a city park |
| Season | August |
| Presenters | Williston Convention and Visitors Bureau and North Dakota Chokecherry Festival Committee |
| First festival | August 18, 2007 |
| State fruit | Chokecherry, designated by Senate Bill 2145 in 2007 |
| Signature contest | Chokecherry pit-spitting contest |
| Festival-wide admission | None published in any year |
History
Before 2007, North Dakota had named no state fruit, until a classroom assignment changed that. Students in Nancy Selby’s sixth-grade class at Rickard Elementary School in Williston wrote persuasive letters to state lawmakers, resting their case in part on the fruit’s place in the state’s history and in the Lewis and Clark journals. Senators Stanley Lyson and Nick Hacker sponsored Senate Bill 2145, signed by Governor John Hoeven on March 29, 2007, making the chokecherry, Prunus virginiana, the official state fruit. Williston held the first North Dakota Chokecherry Festival on August 18, 2007, the same summer the law was signed.
For a useful comparison, see the Wells County North Dakota Fair Festival for another county festival.
The festival’s earliest documented home was Harmon Park, where the 2017 edition ran on August 11 and 12. That year’s evening programme included a burger feed, free ice cream sundaes with chokecherry syrup, a band at the Virgil Syverson Performance Center, vendor stalls, music through the evening, and an outdoor family movie at half past ten at night. No layer fetched dates the move to Davidson Park, or gives a reason for it, so neither is supplied here.
The dated record has gaps: no dated layer for 2018, 2019, 2020 or 2021 was found, so no unbroken run is claimed. The organisers’ own billings for successive editions also disagree, and the disagreement is left standing: no edition number is printed for any year, and none is worked out by counting forward from 2007. What the record supports is continued presence in August at Davidson Park, documented in 2022 through 2026.
What to Expect
A Saturday in the Park
The organisers’ schedule page, whose Friday and Saturday frame matches the 2026 calendar, gives the fullest programme for the main day: walk-up registration at a quarter to eight for the Chokecherry 5K and 1-Mile Fun Run, the run at eight, the Free Pancake Breakfast, sponsored by MWEC and NCC, from eight to eleven, and pickleball at the ARC at eight.
From ten the park fills out: vendors, the Chokecherry Store and the Kids’ Zone open, alongside the Basin Kruzers Car Show until five and wood-carving by Nate Olson of Prairie Logger Carving. The Chokecherry Express Mini Train Rides run from a quarter past ten until three, live music plays in hourly sets, with Brian Salveson, Svea, Kellee Black, Timothy Martin, and Maddy Blue and Colton George on the bill, and the Money Dig, sponsored by Gate City Bank, takes place at half past eleven and again at two. Free Ice Cream with Chokecherry Syrup, sponsored by American State Bank, is served at one, Family Fun Activities by WABA follow at half past two, and the programme closes with a dog competition at the Agri Sports Complex at half past five. The Friday evening before carries a Guns Vs Hoses Softball Game at Aafedt Stadium at five.
The Signature Contest
The chokecherry pit-spitting contest is the festival’s signature contest in the organisers’ standing description, appearing in attraction lists across years alongside the fun run, the miniature train and the free food: low stakes, open to anyone willing to try, and a direct celebration of the fruit itself. Its year-by-year timing is fenced to the layers that name it, but its place in the festival’s identity is constant.
Food with Chokecherry in It
Food is the festival’s other signature, and much of it is given away by sponsors rather than sold: the pancake breakfast and the afternoon ice cream both come with chokecherry syrup, and the traditional free 1,000 Burger Feed appears in the standing listing and in the 2017 programme, when it kicked off at four in the afternoon with free burgers for as long as they lasted. Chokecherry-flavoured treats and specialty foods appear in the standing description and the 2026 preview, alongside local craft and food vendors and handmade items.
The free elements are named with their sponsors because the sponsors are the point: a pancake breakfast funded by a power cooperative and a communications company, ice cream funded by a local bank, a burger feed funded by a telecom company in 2017. None of them speaks for the festival as a whole, and no admission price, ticket or pass for the festival itself is published in any layer fetched.
How the Festival Has Varied by Year
Each year’s additions are kept in their own year here. The 2025 edition added Prehistoric Dinosaur Adventures, an interactive portable museum with a hands-on Dino Dig using real fossils, life-size exhibits, and Buster the T. Rex strolling the park, and its Friday night carried the RISE ABOVE programme, with StuntDudes on BMX bikes and skateboards and an outdoor concert by Maddie Rey and Breaking Eight. The same year’s attraction list names the Money Dig, the Chokecherry Express Train, the Pickleball Tournament, Mini Golf, the Chokecherry Stroll Children’s Parade, the 5K Fun Run, the Pit-Spitting Contest, a Ball Pit, a Foam Zone and the Wood Carver.
The 2024 listing carries Disc-Connected K9s and the Xpogo Stunt Team, with the fun run and pickleball alongside them. A 2024 newsletter’s programme list, used here for its programme only, adds live music and entertainment, food and craft vendors, a silent auction, the Chokecherry Festival Stroll, a burger feed, an ice cream social and a pancake breakfast, with the breakfast’s sponsors given in that layer as MWEC and Lions members, kept apart from the schedule page’s MWEC and NCC. The standing listing layer adds the annual cornhole tournament with prizes for the top places.
Planning Your Visit
When to Come
Come in August, and check the current year’s dates first: the festival’s shape has shifted between one day and two. The 2026 edition is a one-day festival on Saturday, August 8, 2026, at Davidson Park. The 2025 edition ran Friday and Saturday, August 8 and 9, 2025, from four to eight on Friday evening and eight to four on Saturday. The 2024 listing gives Friday, August 9, from four in the afternoon to Saturday, August 10, at six; the 2022 edition ran August 5 and 6 at Davidson Park. The 2023 release celebrates the festival at Davidson Park without stating August dates, so none are given here.
Finding Davidson Park
Head for Davidson Park in Williston, the festival’s venue in every layer from 2022 onward, where vendor and craft stalls sit inside the park alongside the Kids’ Zone, the Chokecherry Store, the car-show field and the train route. A few elements sit outside the park in their own layers: pickleball at the ARC, Friday softball at Aafedt Stadium, and the dog competition at the Agri Sports Complex. Harmon Park belongs to the 2017 layer only and is not the current venue.
What Things Cost
No admission price, ticket, pass or blanket free statement for the festival as a whole is published in any layer fetched, so none is printed here. What is published is a set of sponsor-funded free elements, the pancake breakfast, the ice cream with chokecherry syrup, and the traditional burger feed, each named with its sponsors in its own layer. No registration fee for the fun run, no entry fee for pickleball or cornhole, no vendor fee and no sponsorship price is published either, and no parking or camping arrangement of any kind is published as part of the festival, so arrange both independently.
A Sample Festival Day
A visitor planning around the current single-Saturday shape could shape the day this way, as a suggestion rather than a published schedule: arrive for the fun run, or simply for the pancake breakfast that follows it, spend the morning among the vendors and the Chokecherry Store, with the car show and the wood-carving demonstration to browse between stalls, give the middle of the day to the miniature train and the children’s activities, and be in place for the Money Dig and the pit-spitting contest, when the park gathers around one attraction.
One Day or Two
It helps to see the festival’s two shapes side by side. A one-day festival, like the 2026 edition, packs the run, the breakfast, the vendors, the car show, the train, the contests and the music into a single Saturday, plus Friday evening softball. A two-day festival, like the 2025 edition, spreads the same material across a Friday evening and a Saturday, with evening entertainment, a full Saturday programme, and hours published for each day separately.
Neither shape is permanent: two-day festivals in 2022 and 2025, a single Saturday in 2026, and a two-day shape in the 2024 listing, so confirm which shape the current year takes rather than assuming the last edition’s pattern will repeat.
Visitor Checklist
- Plan on August, and confirm the current year’s dates and shape first
- Head for Davidson Park in Williston, not the festival’s earlier park
- Arrive early for the fun run and the pancake breakfast
- Expect sponsor-funded free food, not a published festival-wide admission
- Give the pit-spitting contest and the miniature train their own time
- Check the satellite venues for pickleball, softball and the dog competition
- Arrange parking and overnight stays independently, since neither is published
- Leave room for vendors, the Chokecherry Store and chokecherry treats
Beyond the Festival Grounds
Williston repays a slower look once the park day ends. The city has held the Williams County seat since 1891, and its streets carry the character of a western North Dakota community grown around farming and energy. A walk through town after the festival gives a sense of the place whose schoolchildren wrote the letters that made a state fruit.
For visitors extending a trip, the wider country around Williston offers broad horizons and small towns far apart.
Why It Matters
A state symbol usually arrives by proclamation; this one arrived by homework. The chokecherry became the official state fruit because a sixth-grade class wrote persuasive letters and lawmakers listened, and the festival exists to keep that story visible. Its stated purpose is to celebrate all things chokecherry and honour the children who made it happen, and in its other wording, to honour youth accomplishments.
That is a modest ambition, and exactly the ambition the record supports: no grand history or great age, only a classroom, a law, a fruit and a park day, filled with free food, music, contests and children’s activities that let a community celebrate a symbol it chose for itself.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is this a county fair?
No. It is a city festival in a public park celebrating North Dakota’s official state fruit, presented by the Williston Convention and Visitors Bureau and the North Dakota Chokecherry Festival Committee, with no fair association, no exhibit programme and no published admission charge.
When does it take place?
In August. The 2026 edition is a one-day festival on Saturday, August 8, 2026, while other documented editions have run across Friday evening and Saturday. The season stays in August, but days and shape move from year to year.
Where exactly is it held?
At Davidson Park in Williston, the venue in every layer from 2022 onward, given here by name and town, its two published address forms left unmerged. A few elements sit at satellite venues: pickleball at the ARC, softball at Aafedt Stadium and the dog competition at the Agri Sports Complex.
Does it cost anything to attend?
Nothing is published either way for the festival as a whole: no admission price, ticket or pass, and no fee for the fun run, pickleball, cornhole or vendors. The published free elements are sponsor-funded: the pancake breakfast, the ice cream with chokecherry syrup and the traditional burger feed, each named with its sponsors in its own layer.
What to Expect From the Next Williams County North Dakota North Dakota Chokecherry Festival
How often is Williams County North Dakota North Dakota Chokecherry Festival held?
It is an annual August festival in Williston, held at Davidson Park in its current layers, varying between a single Saturday and a Friday evening plus Saturday.
When is the next Williams County North Dakota North Dakota Chokecherry Festival?
The next edition falls in the same August season, following the one-day festival of Saturday, August 8, 2026. Confirm the current year’s dates and shape through the organisers’ listings.
Will the dates change?
The dates shift from year to year: a single Saturday in 2026, a Friday and Saturday in 2025, and different August weekends in earlier years. The season stays in August, but individual days move within it.
The invitation at the heart of this festival is simple: come to Davidson Park in August and taste the fruit a classroom of Williston sixth graders talked into law, with pancakes and syrup in the morning, ice cream in the afternoon, a miniature train through the park, and a pit-spitting contest to settle who can send a pit flying the farthest.
