Winnsboro's Autumn Trails Closes With a Car Parade, a Pepper Contest and a Model A Tour
The 1958-born festival wraps up Oct. 22-25 with Trades Days, an antique car parade, a pet show, a beard contest, a hot pepper showdown and a Piney Woods drive.
Autumn Trails has been part of fall in Winnsboro since 1958, and this weekend is its last big push of the year.
The festival's final weekend runs Oct. 22 through 25. It brings a trades day and swap meet, a car parade, a pet show, a beard contest, a hot pepper showdown and a Model A tour through the Piney Woods. The full lineup is on the Winnsboro Autumn Trails Association's event page and in a schedule published by the Wood County Monitor.
Trades Days all weekend
The Trades Days and Swap Meet at Winnsboro City Park anchors the weekend. The Monitor lists it from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday and Saturday and from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday. The association's page also lists a Trades Day on Thursday, Oct. 22.
Saturday, Oct. 24
Saturday is the full day. According to the Monitor's schedule:
8 a.m.-5 p.m.: Arts and Crafts Show, Elm Street downtown.
10 a.m.: Antique and Classic Car Parade, coming into downtown on Highway 11.
10 a.m.: Hot sauce contest entry deadline, Winnsboro Farmers Market.
11 a.m.: All-School Reunion, Old Rock Gym.
11 a.m.-1 p.m.: Classic Car Show, Main Street downtown.
1 p.m.: Pet Show, Bowery Market Square.
1 p.m.: Beard and Mustache Contest, Best Barber Shop, East Elm Street.
5-9 p.m.: Model A Club barbecue, Winnsboro Civic Center.
The association's parade page says cars line up by 9:45 a.m. on Highway 11 at the railroad tracks, 2.5 miles west of downtown. The parade is expected downtown about 10:30 a.m. Entering the car show after the parade costs $10, and prizes will be awarded. The association's event list also includes a "Fashion Through the Eras" event on Saturday.
A 1921 Sanborn fire insurance map of part of Winnsboro. Photo: Sanborn Map Company / Wikimedia Commons, Public domain.
Feel the heat
The Lone Star Pepper Palooza is set for the same day at the Winnsboro Farmers Market, downtown on the Bowery, according to the contest page. It includes professional, amateur and kids' pepper-eating contests. Contestants eat hot chili peppers through 10 rounds of rising heat. If more than one person is still standing after that, it goes to hot-sauce chug rounds of rising heat until there is a winner. Entry is $35 per person. The professional winner takes home a League of Fire championship belt, and kids compete for trophies.
Home and commercial sauce makers can enter a hot sauce contest with two categories, hottest and most flavorful. Entries are $10 a bottle and must be in by 10 a.m., along with a commercial or cottage license. First place wins $50 and a ribbon.
Sunday drive
The weekend closes Sunday with the Model A Tour through the Piney Woods, from 9 a.m. to noon, departing the Trails Country Motel.
That fits how the whole thing started. According to the association's history page, Autumn Trails began on a cool October morning in 1958, when a few friends rode horseback to enjoy the fall foliage. The association marked the festival's 65th anniversary in 2023. Its page describes the area as a gateway to the Piney Woods, with self-guided driving routes through the hills and tree-lined roads of Wood and Franklin counties.
There is nothing complicated about a small town showing off old cars, good dogs and the nerve to eat a hot pepper on purpose. It is neighbors spending a Saturday together, the way East Texas has done it for generations. For updates, call the association at (903) 342-1958. Its office is at 115 W. Elm St.
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