Palmetto's October Calendar Sits on the Corridor the City Is About to Rebuild
October 8, 2026
October 8, 2026
Palmetto's summer happens along the river. Its October happens a few blocks inland, around 10th Avenue West and 10th Street West. That's where the historic park, the church pumpkin patch and the town's newest dessert counter all sit, along with a fenced-off lot that is becoming a park. This October may be one of the last that the corridor looks the way it does now. The city has money lined up to rebuild the street itself, and the park lot is due to open next summer.
Here is the corridor as it stands in the first week of October 2026, with the dates that fill it and the projects that will change it.
Most of the month's free, close-to-home events sit inside a small patch of the west-side street grid. Here is how the calendar looks from now through the end of October.
| Date | What | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Oct. 5, 5:30–7 p.m. | Drop-In Art, bookmark craft, no registration | Palmetto Branch Library |
| Oct. 6 onward | Great Pumpkin Patch season opens, free entry | 209 7th St. W. |
| Oct. 10, 6–8 p.m. | Pumpkins & Popcorn | Great Pumpkin Patch |
| Oct. 17, 10–11 a.m. | "Though Silent They Speak," cemetery talk, waitlist only | Palmetto Historical Park |
| Oct. 17, 6–8 p.m. | Pirates & Princesses | Great Pumpkin Patch |
| Oct. 21, 6–7:30 p.m. | "The Art of Wine Making in Florida" | Agricultural Museum, across from the library |
| Oct. 23, 10 a.m.–noon | Hands-on homeschool morning, drop-in | Palmetto Historical Park and Agricultural Museum |
| Oct. 25, 5–8 p.m. | Trunk or Treat | Great Pumpkin Patch |
Two venues carry almost all of it. One is a public history campus run by several agencies together, and the other is a church lot that becomes a festival for a few weeks each fall.
Palmetto Historical Park is at 515 10th Ave. W., on the corner of 10th Avenue West and 6th Street West. The grounds are open every day. The historic buildings are a different matter. From May through December, free guided tours start at 11 a.m. on each day the park is open, and you need to be on a tour to go inside. The Carnegie Library on the grounds keeps public hours Tuesday through Friday and on the first and third Saturdays of the month, from 10 a.m. to noon and again from 1 to 4 p.m.
No single agency runs the park. It operates under an interlocal arrangement among the City of Palmetto, the Manatee County Clerk of the Circuit Court & Comptroller, the Agricultural Museum and the Palmetto Historical Commission. The Clerk's office provides the Carnegie Library staff. That shared setup explains why the park, the Agricultural Museum and the library across the street program events together.
October's main event is already full. Tracy Kelly's free talk on the language of cemeteries runs Saturday, Oct. 17, from 10 to 11 a.m., with lunch afterward. The park says every seat is taken and offers a cancellation waitlist. The homeschool morning on Friday, Oct. 23, has no registration at all. It runs 10 a.m. to noon with drop-in, hands-on stations shared with the Agricultural Museum.
The wine-making program on Wednesday, Oct. 21, is listed by the county library for the Agricultural Museum across from the Palmetto Library. Further down, the registration section of the same listing calls it an online event, so confirm the format before you head over.
After the 23rd, the park's current event list shows nothing else dated for fall. Its next big event is the recurring Christmas in the Park, held the first Friday and Saturday of December. Reservations are required.
The Great Pumpkin Patch of Palmetto at 209 7th St. W. covers the evenings the history campus doesn't. Forward Community Church organized it in 2025, and the current Fun 4 Manasota listing places the 2026 patch at the church.
Entry and activities are free, and pumpkins are for sale. Organizers say all money raised goes back to local schools, community organizations and outreach ministries. Besides the pumpkins, the patch has photo spots, an inflatable maze and Spirit Nights, plus three themed evenings. Pumpkins & Popcorn is Oct. 10 from 6 to 8 p.m., Pirates & Princesses is Oct. 17 from 6 to 8 p.m., and Trunk or Treat is Oct. 25 from 5 to 8 p.m.
Oct. 17 lines up neatly with the rest of the grid. The cemetery talk ends at 11 a.m., and Pirates & Princesses starts at 6 p.m. a short drive away.
Check the closing date before planning a late visit. The JOY FM calendar has the season ending Sunday, Oct. 25. Fun 4 Manasota lists Oct. 6 through 31 and prints a Sunday opening time of "12:30am," which is almost certainly a typo. The patch's Facebook page will have the final word.
The corridor's one new business this year is Dutch Empanadas at 704 10th St. W. The Bradenton Herald reported in July that it had been open about three weeks. Paul Hoker runs it with co-owner Matt Guthrie and general manager Craig Kramer. Despite the name, these are sweet Dutch fried pies. Kramer and his wife, Brooke, make each 5-ounce pie by hand.
"More people in Florida know what an empanada is than a fried pie," Hoker told the Herald, adding that the name has caused "a little bit of a confusion, because people see empanada and they think … savory."
The fruit flavors are apple, strawberry, blueberry, blackberry, red raspberry, cherry, peach, guava and mango. Every one except mango also comes with cream cheese. There's also a Bavarian chocolate pie and a chocolate-and-Bavarian-cream pie. Pies are $4.50 each or $50 a dozen. In July the shop was open weekdays only, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., with no seating. That makes it a stop on the way to somewhere else. Hours may have changed since the summer, so check before planning a Saturday stop around it.
The corridor will look different next fall because of two projects in the same funding package. In August, WWSB reported that $5.25 million in state money was going to four Palmetto projects. Two of them sit right on this grid.
The first is Patriot Park, at 14th Avenue West and 10th Street West, which got $1.5 million. Ground was broken on July 4, 2026. Plans include basketball, pickleball and tennis courts and a playground, with a ribbon-cutting planned for July 4, 2027. If that date holds, next October the grid gets its first public courts and playground, a short walk up 10th Street West from the pie counter.
The second is the 10th Avenue West Complete Streets project, which got $2 million. It runs from Riverside Drive to 17th Street West and passes the Historical Park on the way. The city's funding request to the state lists these changes:
The request expects design to be finished in fall 2026, with the first construction phases in 2027 and the full project spread across 2027 to 2029. It leaves the start and completion date fields blank. That puts the street in its design stage right now, while the pumpkin patch and park events are running. The City Commission and CRA have sessions on the city calendar for Oct. 5 and Oct. 19, then Nov. 2 and Nov. 16. The CRA marked 40 years in September and says mixed-use waterfront, residential and business development are all still in progress.
So in a year, a walk from the Historical Park toward 10th Street West could pass active street work along the way and end at a new playground.
Several of October's bigger events sit up U.S. 41 or out at the fairgrounds:
The Marriott festival ends at 5 p.m., and Trunk or Treat at the pumpkin patch starts at 5, so a family can do both on Oct. 25 back to back. Through Oct. 6, plan for southbound U.S. 41 between Terra Ceia Bay Boulevard and 17th Street West. The outside lane closes on and off from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. while FPL replaces pole equipment, and the MPO notes that schedules can change.
Some of us at Madison Wells live and work near this corridor, and we'll keep an eye on the Patriot Park opening and the 10th Avenue West construction schedule as they firm up. If you own a home near the work and want to know how the coming changes might affect its value, we're happy to help. Request Your Free Home Valuation and we'll go through it with you.
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