“ We did that for several years, and our numbers started to grow to 50 kids, to 100 kids, then to 150 kids. Then we started putting a little sign up on Highway 31, and then we started getting around 250 kids,” Lee said.
He began incorporating homemade zombies and a graveyard to the decor, and visitors in the hundreds began to flock to Woodland Street. The number rose so high, Lee ran out of candy.
He made a promise to himself that no child visiting his home on Halloween would ever have to leave without candy again, a promise he has kept.
It was around this time period that Heidi Milliken moved to Woodland Street with her family. Milliken and her husband, Rick, a Cullman native, would take her third-grade daughter and her friends trick-or-treating to several subdivisions including ones he remembered as a child.
“ I realized getting back into our neighborhood was hard. One year it took me 30 minutes just to get from the highway back to our house and I never understood why because we had never been trick-or-treating in our neighborhood until one year I realized it was Zach’ s house,” she said.
Milliken said seeing the size and scope of Lee’ s Halloween decorations reignited her own passion for creativity. Before her family moved to Cullman from Oneonta, she said she had been heavily involved in her church’ s children’ s ministry and would often design and build large props for different productions. She struggled to find an outlet before realizing she could channel that energy into Halloween.
“ The children’ s pastor over there would get these big ideas, and we would make it happen. So, I like doing big things. When we moved here, I kind of lost that creativity for many years,” she said.
And it all started with a single pumpkin.
Heidi Milliken says her favorite theme, so far, is the 30 foot pirate ship her husband, Rick, built in their front yard.
PHOTO COURTESY HEIDI MILLIKEN
Cullman magazine | HOLIDAY 2026
9