A Hundred-Year-Old Store, a Covered Bridge Over Stoner Creek, and 50 Vendors: Fall Fest Comes to Circle P Ranch October 3
Mt. Juliet has grown so fast that it is easy to forget there is still a working ranch sitting in the middle of the old part of town — 80 acres of pasture, woods and pond a short drive from the roundabouts and rooftops. On Saturday, October 3, it opens the gate.
Fall Fest runs from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. at Circle P Ranch, 563 East Main Street, with more than 50 vendors, food trucks, and activities and demonstrations spread out across the property. Live music sets up at the Main Street Market, and the creamery will be open. It is put on by Vendors on Main together with the ranch, and organizers have said additional details will be announced as the date gets closer.
The venue is the story
Plenty of towns can put 50 vendors in a field. What makes this one worth the drive is where the tents go up.
Circle P Ranch is the long project of Rufus Page, who did not simply want to run an old-time country store — he wanted to build the village around it. The centerpiece is a building with real mileage: A.R. Tomlinson's Store, close to a century old, which in its earlier life also pumped gas. Rather than tear it down or turn it into a museum piece, Page put it back to work as a farmers market. The wooden bones are original. The purpose is current.
Around it he has assembled the rest of the village piece by piece. There is a working windmill. There is a turn-of-the-century Mt. Juliet train depot — the actual thing, preserved rather than reproduced, which is a rarer sight in Wilson County every year. The entrance is framed by a log gate built from timbers cut on the property. And a covered wooden bridge carries you across Stoner Creek, the same creek that runs through so much of this town's history and lends its name to a good deal of it.
The market itself sells produce grown on site alongside goods sourced from Amish and Mennonite growers, which is why the shelves in October tend to look like October rather than like a supply chain.
What to expect on the day
Fall festivals in Middle Tennessee tend to fall into two categories: a parking lot with inflatables, or an actual farm doing what a farm does in autumn with the public invited. This is firmly the second kind. The demonstrations and activities are scattered throughout the ranch rather than penned into one corner, which means the walk between them is half the point — pasture, treeline, pond, the creek, the bridge.
Come hungry. Food trucks will be on site, the creamery will be scooping, and the market will be open for the kind of shopping that is difficult to do at a chain grocery in the first week of October.
A practical note: admission has not been announced, so check before you plan around it.
If you go
- What: Mt. Juliet Fall Fest
- When: Saturday, October 3, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
- Where: Circle P Ranch, 563 E. Main St., Mt. Juliet, TN 37122
- Who: Vendors on Main and Circle P Ranch
- Featuring: 50+ vendors, food trucks, demonstrations, live music at Main Street Market, the creamery
October 3 is a good long way from a Middle Tennessee August, and that is rather the point — by then the mornings will have turned, the pasture will have gone gold at the edges, and the walk across a covered bridge will feel like the season it is supposed to feel like.
Planning the rest of the day? See our guides to the best restaurants in Mt. Juliet and things to do around town.
