Colbert County Alabama Coon Dog Labor Day Festival
On a pine bluff in the Freedom Hills of western Colbert County, more than 350 coonhounds lie buried in a graveyard reserved for them alone, and once a year that quiet clearing fills with music, storytelling and flowers. The Colbert County Alabama Coon Dog Labor Day Festival is the annual celebration held at the Key Underwood Coon Dog Memorial Graveyard, a place most people know by its shorter popular name, the Coon Dog Cemetery. A magazine description of the tradition notes that flowers are placed on the graves each year during the Labor Day Coon Dog Cemetery Festival, and that published name and the title of this article are simply two wordings for the same gathering. Rearrange the words and the event is identical: a Labor Day homecoming for the hunters, families and dog lovers who keep this unusual cemetery’s memory alive.
Nothing about the day resembles a county fair with gates, midway rides and ticket booths. It is closer to a reunion held among headstones, where genuine remembrance sits comfortably beside tall tales and barbecue smoke. That blend of mourning and merriment is the key to the festival itself.
About the Festival
The festival is the yearly Labor Day celebration at the memorial graveyard, hosted by the Coon Hunters Association to mark the founding of the cemetery. During the celebration the graves are cleaned and decorated, entertainment includes music and a liar’s contest, and visitors wander among the markers reading the names and epitaphs of dogs buried there across nearly nine decades.
The host community is Cherokee, in rural Colbert County. Cherokee is not the county seat; that distinction belongs to Tuscumbia, and the graveyard stands well outside any town centre. The Encyclopedia of Alabama places the site in a remote area of Colbert County known as Freedom Hills Wildlife Management Area, near the Natchez Trace and the community of Cherokee. A separate travel layer puts the cemetery about seven miles west of Tuscumbia, the county seat.
The organising names attached to the cemetery appear in several forms across the record, kept separate here rather than merged. The Encyclopedia of Alabama names the Tennessee Valley Coon Hunters Association, recording that it oversees the cemetery and hosts a celebration each Labor Day. An enthusiast site writes the name as Tennessee Valley Coon Hunter’s Association, with the apostrophe placed differently, while the Alabama Farmers Federation layer uses Tennessee Valley Coon Hunters’ Association. One travel layer separately names Key Underwood Coon Dog Memorial Graveyard, Inc. as the managing organisation, an attribution distinct from the Association’s role.
For a useful comparison, see the Colbert County Alabama North Alabama African Heritage Festival for another county festival.
Quick Facts
| Item | Detail |
| Event | Annual Labor Day celebration at the Key Underwood Coon Dog Memorial Graveyard |
| Popular name | Coon Dog Cemetery |
| When | Labor Day each year |
| Host community | Cherokee, in rural Colbert County, Alabama |
| Setting | Freedom Hills Wildlife Management Area, near the Natchez Trace |
| Host body | Tennessee Valley Coon Hunters Association |
| Graveyard founded | 1937, with the burial of Key Underwood’s dog Troop |
| Dogs interred | More than 350 coonhounds |
| Admission | Free to the public, with donations accepted toward upkeep |
| Highlights | Live music, a liar’s contest, decorated graves and barbecue plates |
History
The graveyard began with a single dog. Key Underwood’s coon dog Troop died the day before Labor Day in 1937, and Underwood buried him on September 4, 1937, which was Labor Day itself, at a pine bluff known as Sugar Creek, a spot where the men of the area camped and hunted together. That one grave, dug for a valued hunting companion, became the seed of a burial ground set apart for coon dogs and no others.
From that beginning the cemetery grew dog by dog, generation by generation, until more than 350 coonhounds had been laid to rest under the pines. Burial here has never been open to any pet that died. It is restricted to verified coon dogs, and three requirements guard the gate: the owner must certify the dog, a witness must make a declaration, and an association member must view and certify the dog as a genuine coonhound. Those rules explain why the graveyard stayed true to its purpose instead of drifting into a general pet cemetery. The land itself belongs to the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, which anchors the site within the surrounding wildlife management area.
The Labor Day gathering grew naturally out of the founding date. Because Troop went into the ground on Labor Day, the holiday became the anniversary the Association returns to each year. Flowers, freshly cleaned markers and a crowd of old friends give the occasion the feel of a decoration day, while the music and contests layered on top turned remembrance into a festival without letting it stop being a memorial.
What to Expect
Expect a gathering that is half homecoming and half homage. The heart of the day is the decorated cemetery itself: graves cleaned for the occasion, flowers laid on the markers, and visitors drifting from stone to stone reading the names of famous and forgotten hounds. Around that solemn core, the entertainment builds. Music runs through the celebration, and the Alabama Farmers Federation layer adds buck dancing to the bill, a heel-and-toe tradition that suits a crowd raised on fiddles and front porches.
The Farmers Federation layer is blunt about the centrepiece, treating the liar’s contest as the main event of the day. In a liar’s contest, storytellers compete to tell the most outrageous hunting tale with a straight face, and the biggest fabrication, delivered best, takes the honours. It is a fitting contest for a cemetery built by coon hunters, a subculture in which the story of the hunt has always mattered almost as much as the hunt itself.
Food and fundraising are woven through the day rather than fenced off from it. In the Farmers Federation layer, L.O. Bishop’s Hawg House Barbecue sells plates to the crowd, and T-shirt and souvenir sales help fund the upkeep of the grounds, so a visitor who buys lunch or a shirt is directly helping to maintain the cemetery. One enthusiast-site layer records that admission is free to the public, with donations accepted toward upkeep, which matches the day’s character: this gathering runs on goodwill and small contributions rather than gate money.
For the 2026 gathering, a single secondary newsletter write-up gives Monday, September 7, 2026, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., with music by Patrick Tetreault and The Pride of the North Bank and Joseph Baldwin. That listing stands as one secondary layer only. It is not organiser-confirmed, and no reader should treat its hours or its music bill as an official announcement.
Planning Your Visit
Treat the journey as part of the experience, because the cemetery sits deep in rural Colbert County and reaching it is a country drive, not a city errand. One enthusiast site publishes the address as 4945 Coondog Cemetery Rd, Cherokee, AL 35616, and that address is recorded here under that enthusiast layer only. The travel layer’s simpler guidance, about seven miles west of Tuscumbia, is worth holding in mind alongside it, since Tuscumbia is the county seat and the natural supply point before you head out toward Cherokee and the Freedom Hills.
Plan around a single day, because the celebration belongs to Labor Day itself rather than to a long weekend of programmed events. Arrive with time to walk the whole burial ground slowly, since the graves and their inscriptions reward unhurried reading, and the day’s contests and music unfold at a gathering’s pace rather than a stadium schedule. Bring money for a barbecue plate and perhaps a souvenir shirt, remembering that both purchases feed the upkeep fund. Bring respect, too: however lively the contests become, the ground underfoot is a cemetery, and families present may be visiting the markers of dogs they personally buried and mourned.
Early September in northwest Alabama is still summer weather, so dress for heat, choose footwear suited to grass and uneven ground, and carry water. The setting is a wildlife management area rather than a developed attraction, so expect a rustic site and come prepared to be self-sufficient.
A Sample Labor Day at the Cemetery
Begin the morning with the drive out from Tuscumbia, heading west toward Cherokee while the day is still cool, and arrive as the gathering is taking shape. Spend your first hour simply walking the rows of graves, reading the markers, and watching volunteers and families clean stones and set flowers in place, because that quiet work is the reason the cemetery exists.
Toward the middle of the day, settle in for the music and the buck dancing, and buy a barbecue plate when the Hawg House stand is serving. Save your fullest attention for the liar’s contest, the acknowledged main event, where the competing tales grow taller with every teller. Finish the afternoon browsing the T-shirts and souvenirs, knowing the money supports the grounds, and walk the burial ground one last time before the drive back, when the decorated graves look their best in the late light.
Two Moods Sharing One Clearing
The strangest and best thing about this festival is that it runs two emotional registers at once. One mood is pure memorial: flowers, cleaned headstones, epitaphs read aloud, and the genuine grief of hunters for partners who shared cold nights and long trails with them. The other mood is pure festival: dancing, barbecue, souvenirs and a contest that rewards the most shameless liar in the crowd. At most events those moods would cancel each other out. Here they complete each other, because the tall tales are themselves a form of remembrance, keeping alive the storytelling culture of the men who founded the cemetery and buried their dogs beneath the pines.
Planning Checklist
- Confirm the year’s Labor Day date before setting out, since the celebration follows the holiday itself.
- Note the enthusiast-published address, 4945 Coondog Cemetery Rd, Cherokee, and the landmark guidance of about seven miles west of Tuscumbia.
- Allow unhurried time for walking the full burial ground and reading the markers.
- Carry money for a barbecue plate and a souvenir, both of which support upkeep of the grounds.
- Consider a donation toward the cemetery’s upkeep, which the enthusiast layer records as accepted.
- Dress for early-September heat and wear shoes suited to grass and uneven ground.
- Bring water and anything else a rustic, undeveloped site will not provide.
- Treat every grave with the respect owed to a cemetery, however festive the crowd becomes.
Beyond the Festival
The setting does much of the festival’s quiet work. The cemetery rests inside Freedom Hills Wildlife Management Area, a broad tract of Colbert County woodland, and the Natchez Trace passes near the community of Cherokee, giving the whole district a layered, frontier-era atmosphere that suits a burial ground begun by hunters in 1937. A visitor already travelling the Trace or exploring the county’s western reaches will find the cemetery a natural detour rather than an isolated errand.
Tuscumbia, the county seat roughly seven miles to the east by the travel layer’s measure, is the practical base for the trip, the place to fuel up before the rural leg of the drive. The contrast between the county seat and the deep-woods clearing where the dogs lie buried captures something essential about Colbert County: its history is kept as faithfully in remote hollows as in its courthouse square.
Why This Gathering Matters
A cemetery that admits only verified coon dogs is a monument to a working partnership between people and animals that modern life has largely set aside. The Labor Day celebration keeps that monument tended and visited: souvenir sales and donations fund the upkeep, families return to decorate graves, and the liar’s contest preserves the oral tradition that bound hunting camps together long before the cemetery existed. Few festivals are rooted in a single grave dug on a single holiday in 1937, and fewer still have grown for decades without losing sight of that grave. This one manages both.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why does a graveyard for hunting dogs hold a celebration at all?
The celebration marks the founding of the cemetery, which began when Key Underwood buried his dog Troop there on Labor Day in 1937. The Association that oversees the grounds hosts the gathering each Labor Day to honour that founding, and the decorated graves, flowers and storytelling keep the memorial purpose at the centre of the day.
Which dogs are allowed to be buried at the cemetery?
Only verified coon dogs qualify. Three requirements must be met: the owner certifies the dog, a witness makes a declaration, and an association member views and certifies the dog as a genuine coonhound. Those rules have kept the burial ground exclusive to coonhounds since 1937.
What is the liar’s contest that everyone talks about?
It is a storytelling competition in which entrants spin the most outrageous hunting tales they can deliver with a straight face, and the Alabama Farmers Federation layer treats it as the main event of the celebration. The contest honours the tall-tale culture of the hunting camps from which the cemetery grew.
Are the organising bodies behind the cemetery the same organisation?
The record keeps them separate. The Encyclopedia of Alabama names the Tennessee Valley Coon Hunters Association as the body that oversees the cemetery and hosts the Labor Day celebration, while one travel layer names Key Underwood Coon Dog Memorial Graveyard, Inc. as the managing organisation. The sources use several stylings of the Association’s name as well, and none of these forms has been merged into a single confirmed organiser here.
What to Expect From the Next Colbert County Alabama Coon Dog Labor Day Festival
How often is Colbert County Alabama Coon Dog Labor Day Festival held?
The gathering returns with Labor Day every year, because the holiday is the anniversary of the cemetery’s 1937 founding. The Association hosts the celebration on the day itself, so its rhythm is set by the federal holiday rather than by a fixed date on the calendar.
When is the next Colbert County Alabama Coon Dog Labor Day Festival?
The next celebration falls on Labor Day, the first Monday of September, at the Key Underwood Coon Dog Memorial Graveyard near Cherokee. A single secondary newsletter layer documented the 2026 gathering for Monday, September 7, 2026, and future editions follow the same holiday, so checking the year’s Labor Day date is the surest way to fix the day.
Will the dates change?
The occasion cannot drift far, because it is chained to Labor Day itself. The numbered date moves as the holiday moves within early September, and the day of the week is fixed by the holiday’s definition, so the celebration stays on the first Monday of September even though the calendar number differs from year to year.
Come for the contest and the barbecue if you like, but stay for the graves. Stand among the pines at Sugar Creek, read the names of more than 350 good dogs, and you will understand why Colbert County keeps this small, strange, heartfelt festival at the centre of its Labor Day.
