Elk County Kansas Outhouse Festival
Every November, the small Elk County town of Elk Falls turns a humble backyard necessity into a weekend of jokes, craftsmanship and friendly rivalry. Decorated privies appear across the community, visitors wander between them with ballots in hand, and the whole town leans into a celebration that a state tourism layer lists under the name Elk Falls Outhouse Festival. A state newspaper layer and a farm press layer print the shorter form Outhouse Festival, while listing layers favour tour wording such as Outhouse Tour and Annual Outhouse Tour and Contest, and a travel guide layer also speaks of a Fall Open House. Those published forms are kept separate here, because the county-prefixed festival title on this page is printed in none of the layers read. What the record does support is a recurring late-autumn gathering built around a self-guided tour of creatively dressed-up outhouses, judged by the visitors themselves, in a town that proudly calls itself the Outhouse Capital of Kansas.
About the Festival
Elk Falls sits in Elk County in southeast Kansas, and it is worth stating plainly that the town is not the county seat. Howard holds that role for Elk County, a point the reference layers confirm. Elk Falls did once chase the honour: a county-history layer records that the town was an early candidate for the seat and finally gave up the fight in eighteen seventy-five. The festival, though, needs no courthouse to justify itself. Its stage is the whole community, with entries scattered through town and a check-in point at the Outhouse Headquarters downtown, across from the Post Office, as an event-listing layer describes it.
The name tangle deserves a moment of its own. The state tourism layer’s fall listing prints Elk Falls Outhouse Festival in full, and the state newspaper and farm press layers use Outhouse Festival on its own. Listing layers lean toward the mechanics of the thing, writing Outhouse Tour, Elk Falls Outhouse Tour and Annual Outhouse Tour and Contest, while one listing also offers the combined form Elk Falls Open House and Outhouse Tour. None of these is treated here as the single correct name; each belongs to the layer that printed it.
Two organiser names appear in the record, and they are not merged. A travel-guide layer states that the Friends of Elk Falls Association coordinates the annual Fall Open House celebration, while a state newspaper layer credits promotion of the festivities to a community page printed under the name Get Elk Falls. How those two roles divide the work of staging the weekend is something the layers leave unsaid, so this account leaves it unsaid too. The layers also disagree slightly on what to call the thing being organised: tour, contest, open house and festival all appear, sometimes side by side, and each form is reported here exactly where its own layer uses it.
Quick Facts
| Item | Detail |
| Published names | Elk Falls Outhouse Festival; Outhouse Festival; Outhouse Tour; Fall Open House |
| Host town | Elk Falls, Elk County, Kansas |
| County seat | Howard, not Elk Falls |
| Timing | Friday and Saturday before Thanksgiving, in the layers read |
| Next dated edition | Twenty to twenty-one November two thousand twenty-six |
| Venue | Throughout the community, with check-in at Outhouse Headquarters downtown |
| Voting token | An Outhouse Button with ballot and map, sold for one dollar |
| Coordinating body | Friends of Elk Falls Association, for the Fall Open House |
| Town billing | Outhouse Capital of Kansas |
| Centrepiece | A self-guided tour of decorated outhouses judged by visitor votes |
History
No layer read offers a founding year for this festival, and the numbered billings scattered through the record are reported as billings only, never added up into a start date. A community-college layer describes an edition held on twenty-two to twenty-three November and billed as the eighteenth annual Outhouse Festival, with college students sponsoring an outhouse of their own. An event-listing layer bills another edition, held on nineteen to twenty November from nine in the morning to five in the afternoon, as the twenty-sixth Annual Outhouse Tour and Contest. A state newspaper layer, writing in January two thousand twenty-six, described the previous November’s gathering as the thirtieth year of the event and reported that it was thought to have set an attendance record. Those three numbers belong to three different layers and three different editions, and this account keeps them that way.
For a useful comparison, see the Douglas County Kansas Pride Festival for another county festival.
Between the billings, the dated trail is steady enough. A farm press layer documents the fall Outhouse Festival on seventeen to eighteen November two thousand twenty-three, complete with the self-guided Elk Falls Outhouse Tour. The state newspaper layer’s account of November two thousand twenty-five mentions decorated outhouses, food, crafts and the self-guided tour running on the Friday and Saturday before Thanksgiving. A state tourism layer then carries the event forward, listing the Elk Falls Outhouse Festival for twenty to twenty-one November two thousand twenty-six. The town’s own swagger is older in print than any of these listings: state tourism and travel layers both repeat Elk Falls’s claim to be the Outhouse Capital of Kansas, a title the festival exists to defend one decorated privy at a time.
What to Expect
The heart of the weekend is the tour itself. Visitors collect a ballot and a map, then walk or drive a route through town, stopping at each entered outhouse to judge the imagination on display. Travel layers describe a contest of creatively decorated outhouses decided by visitors’ votes, with an Outhouse Throne Award awaiting the winner. Themes and decorations are left to the entrants, and the judging is deliberately democratic: the crowd, not a panel, picks the champion.
The tour is self-guided, which shapes the whole feel of the day. There is no starting gun and no fixed order of stops; the map orders the entries, and each visitor sets a personal pace, lingering where the decorating earns it and moving quickly past entries that do not. That looseness is part of the appeal the travel layers describe, because the contest doubles as a wandering introduction to the town itself — its streets, its porches and its sense of humour all end up on the route.
Around that centrepiece, the layers sketch a small-town festival of the familiar kind. Travel and college layers mention live music, handcrafts and food vendors. The college layer’s edition also featured horse-drawn wagon rides and pottery demonstrations, recorded here as part of that edition rather than as a promise for every year. The state newspaper layer’s account of two thousand twenty-five adds food and crafts alongside the decorated entries. A Fall Open House runs through the same weekend in the travel-guide layer’s telling, coordinated by the Friends of Elk Falls Association, so shops and displays around town form part of the backdrop. None of the layers prints a stage schedule or a performer list, and none is invented here.
Planning Your Visit
Aim for the Friday and Saturday before Thanksgiving, the slot the state newspaper layer gives for the two thousand twenty-five edition and the pattern the dated listings follow. The state tourism layer’s next listing falls on twenty to twenty-one November two thousand twenty-six, which fits that same late-November rhythm. Because Elk Falls is a small community, the visit is simple in shape: arrive in town, call at the Outhouse Headquarters downtown across from the Post Office, and pick up the means to tour.
The one purchase the layers name is the Outhouse Button. A state newspaper layer citing the state tourism site, backed by travel-guide layers, describes a button sold with a ballot and a map for one dollar. Treat that button as a voting token rather than a ticket: it is how a visitor takes part in judging the contest, and no layer read states any separate gate admission for the festival grounds, because there are no grounds in the fairground sense — the event spreads through the town itself. Older state calendar layers print a telephone number for the event; that number is noted here only to say it exists, and it is not reproduced. Layers read for this account print no admission price beyond the button, no parking scheme and no lodging guidance, so travellers should expect a modest, walk-up kind of day. Late November in Kansas also argues for warm layers and an early start, since the tour runs outdoors through a small town and the listing layer’s contest hours in one edition ran from nine in the morning to five in the afternoon, which is most of the usable daylight at that time of year.
A Sample Day on the Tour
Begin downtown at the Outhouse Headquarters, buy the button, and study the map over a slow first look at the nearest entries. Spend the middle of the day working outward through the route, voting as you go rather than saving every judgement for the end, because first impressions are the contest’s whole spirit. Break for food from the vendors the travel and college layers mention, and leave time for the handcrafts stalls. If wagon rides or pottery demonstrations are running in the year you attend, as they did in the college layer’s edition, fit them between tour stops rather than treating them as the main event. Finish back near the headquarters, hand in the ballot, and linger for whatever music is playing before the light goes.
How It Compares
Most small-town festivals celebrate something a community grows, builds or cooks. Elk Falls celebrates something every farmstead once needed and nobody misses, and that inversion is the joke the whole weekend is built on. Where a harvest festival shows off produce, this tour shows off paint, props and punchlines applied to the least glamorous structure on the property. The judging model also sets it apart: many contests hand decisions to appointed judges, while the listing and travel layers here put the verdict in visitors’ hands through a one-dollar ballot. The Fall Open House framing adds a second, quieter layer — part open day for the town, part contest — that a single-purpose fair does not usually attempt.
Visitor Checklist
- Note the Friday and Saturday before Thanksgiving as the festival’s usual slot
- Head first to the Outhouse Headquarters downtown, across from the Post Office
- Buy the Outhouse Button to receive a ballot and a map
- Vote at each stop instead of saving all judgements for the end
- Carry small cash for food vendors and handcrafts stalls
- Allow time for wagon rides or demonstrations if that year’s programme offers them
- Remember that Howard, not Elk Falls, is the Elk County seat when planning the wider trip
- Keep the ballot safe until it is handed in
Beyond the Festival
Elk Falls offers one more outhouse sight that is not part of the contest at all. Travel layers describe a year-round Outhouse Grove photo-op site on the highway west of town, where visitors can pose for pictures whenever they pass through. It is an attraction in its own right and should not be confused with the November tour: the grove waits all year, while the festival’s decorated entries, ballots and voting belong to a single late-autumn weekend. Travellers crossing this corner of Kansas outside November can still stop at the grove, but the contest, the crowds and the Fall Open House atmosphere exist only when the festival does. A wider Elk County trip can also take in Howard, the county seat, which the reference layers place in that role while Elk Falls supplies the county’s best-known celebration. Holding the courthouse and holding the calendar are different kinds of prominence, and this county splits them between two towns a short drive apart.
Why It Matters
A festival like this one does several jobs at once for a very small town. It gives Elk Falls a claim on travellers’ attention that larger neighbours cannot copy, because the Outhouse Capital of Kansas billing is printed in state tourism and travel layers alike. It turns residents into competitors and hosts in the same weekend, and it hands visitors a role — judge — that most festivals reserve for officials. The state newspaper layer’s report that the thirtieth-year edition was thought to have set an attendance record suggests the formula still draws a crowd. For Elk County, whose seat and services sit in Howard, the festival is also a reminder that a town without the courthouse can still own the calendar’s most original weekend.
Frequently Asked Questions
What exactly are visitors judging during the tour?
They judge the entered outhouses themselves: decorated, themed privies placed around the community, scored by visitor ballot, with travel layers naming an Outhouse Throne Award for the winner the crowd selects.
Why does Elk Falls call itself an outhouse capital?
State tourism and travel layers both print the town’s self-proclaimed title, Outhouse Capital of Kansas, and the annual tour and contest give that boast a public stage each November.
Is the Outhouse Grove part of the competition?
No. The grove on the highway west of town is a year-round photo-op attraction described in travel layers, separate from the festival weekend and its balloted contest.
Which organisation stands behind the weekend?
A travel-guide layer credits the Friends of Elk Falls Association with coordinating the annual Fall Open House celebration, while a state newspaper layer attributes the festival’s promotion to a community page printed as Get Elk Falls; the layers name no other organiser.
What to Expect From the Next Elk County Kansas Outhouse Festival
How often is Elk County Kansas Outhouse Festival held?
The dated editions in the record fall in November, and the state newspaper layer places the two thousand twenty-five gathering on the Friday and Saturday before Thanksgiving, so the pattern in print is a once-a-year late-autumn weekend.
When is the next Elk County Kansas Outhouse Festival?
The state tourism layer lists the Elk Falls Outhouse Festival for twenty to twenty-one November two thousand twenty-six, continuing the sequence of dated editions that runs through two thousand twenty-three and two thousand twenty-five.
Will the dates change?
Nothing in the layers read announces a move away from the Friday and Saturday before Thanksgiving, although the exact calendar dates shift each year with the holiday, so checking the current state tourism listing before travelling is the sensible course.
Closing Thoughts
Elk Falls built a festival out of the building nobody used to talk about, and the record — tourism listings, a state newspaper’s thirtieth-year account, farm press coverage and a college layer’s programme notes — shows a town still committed to the joke decades of billings later. Bring a ballot, take the decorating seriously even when the entries do not, and let the Outhouse Capital of Kansas make its case.
