The Haunted Woods was started by volunteers from the City of Rosemount, Rosemount High School and citizens of Rosemount. It was always held over a couple of nights and on Halloween night. The Halloween party was originally held in the high school commons area, it was later moved to the community center.
In 1982 the Haunted Woods was started by volunteers from the City of Rosemount, Rosemount High School and citizens of Rosemount. It was always held over a couple of nights and on Halloween night. The Halloween party was originally held in the high school commons area, it later moved to the community center.
In 1991 on Halloween night, the now famous Halloween Blizzard dumped over 41” of wet snow in 2 days, thus canceling the Haunted Woods and destroying many of the props used to put this production on. After the storm, the props that could be salvaged were placed into a semi trailer for storage. It continued outside until 1996, but numbers were declining. A Halloween party was done at the community center, but it just wasn’t the same.
2001 - A group of volunteers decided to give the Haunted Woods another chance. It was scaled way back. 300 people showed up at Central Park, with only Rosemount Seniors passing out candy from the shelter.
2002 - The Halloween Committee renamed the Haunted Woods to the Haunted Woods Trail (as it's known now) 933 showed up to an event that had been away for so long.
2003 to 2012 - The Rosemount Halloween Committee had made several changes over the years, from having the Haunted Woods Trail start at the Park and Ride lot to purchasing Halloween related blow-ups, adding more lighting, getting a better sound system and giving a lot of the old props extreme makeovers. The Halloween Committee has collected and donated all non-perishable food items to the local food shelves, with over 6,000 pounds of food collected so far. Each year our attendance continues to grow. Each year we have over 3,000 attend this annual event. It is only because of our dedicated volunteers that make this event work.
2012- Our 30th Anniversary Celebration. We introduced our newest prop – The Haunted Castle.
2013 – We stopped using burning candles and purchased LED candle tea lights to light up our carved pumpkins.
2014 – We reached another milestone! We had over 3,700 people attend. We reconfigured the trail with new splash pad plaza as part of the trail. The line waiting to attend the Haunted Woods Trail went through four parking lots and south on Highway 3.