Watertown & Mayer
COMMUNITY GUIDE 2025
Festivals celebrate local communities
Watertown and Mayer residents enjoy summer festivals each year. Watertown’ s Rails To Trails Festival and Mayer’ s Rising Community Festival, both held in July, are two annual events not to be missed.
Rails To Trails is organized by the Watertown Lions Club, though the Chamber of Commerce and other community organizations work to make the event a success as well. It’ s technically a two-day festival— Friday and Saturday— with most events held downtown, and a grand parade on Saturday afternoon. However, the festivities truly start in the week leading up to the weekend celebration.
Popular Rails to Trails events include the search for the Golden Spike, golf tournament, bean bag tournaments, games for kids, the Thursday Movie in the Park, great food, duck races, bingo, fishing contest, spaghetti eating contests, gaming tournaments, a display from the Watertown Area Historical Society, and of course, live music throughout the event. For more information, visit railstotrailswatertown. com. This year’ s event is set for July 26-27.
In Mayer, the Mayer Rising Community Festival will be back this year. Events typically include games for kids, a rock climbing wall, kids parade and great food, and some recent events also included an amateur baseball game. The annual antique car and tractor show has also grown to be one of the biggest parts of the festival, with nearly 200 entries in years past. Organizers described the festival as“ a free family friendly event with truly something for everyone. It is a way to bring the community together and enjoy a day spent supporting local business, checking out cool cars and tractors, and letting the kids be kids.” The 2023 Mayer Rising Community Festival will be held in July.
For more information or to help with the festival, contact city hall at( 952) 657-1502, or visit www. cityofmayer. com or visit the festival’ s page on Facebook.
Other fairs and festivals also occur nearby including the Carver County Fair in Waconia which takes place in August. Delano holds a festive Fourth of July celebration featuring one of the state’ s oldest Fourth of July parades, fireworks, live music, carnival rides and much more— catch the fun the first weekend in July.
Stiftungsfest, a German-themed festival, is traditionally held in August in Norwood Young America, and Nickle Dickle Day, the annual community celebration in Waconia, is held in September. Winsted hosts one of the state’ s largest music festivals each year called Winstock which will take place in June.
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