On Hillsdale Drive, one garage is ready again for its October run. Inside are drop boxes, strobe lights, an air blast, a vibrating floor and more than a dozen actors hiding in the dark. Small groups go through one at a time. When the kids in line are small, the haunt gets gentler. The Oregonian/OregonLive reported last year that the drop boxes come down slower, the air blast is held back and the vibrating floor is switched off.
This is The Haunted Porch, and 2026 is its last season. It runs on Friday and Saturday this week and again next Friday and Saturday, which is Halloween.
Newberg's Halloween has one large organized event, Trick or Treat Street on East First Street. Several of the other traditions on the calendar are run by one or two people each, and this year two of those change form within days of each other. The Haunted Porch ends, and Harvest Moon Sangria Bar gives up its downtown storefront and keeps going on wheels. Neither one will be back in its current form next October.
The haunt that began on an actual porch
Brant Page started The Haunted Porch in Keizer in 2002, and it really did start on a porch. He later moved to Hillsboro and then to Newberg. The name came along each time, even after the haunt outgrew the porch and moved into his garage. Page, who works as a Farmers Insurance agent, builds many of the props himself.
"It's kind of like my art," Page told The Oregonian/OregonLive.
For its first years the haunt opened only on Halloween night. In 2016 Page added the weekend before Halloween as a fundraiser, and the price of admission became a canned good for Newberg FISH, the local emergency food pantry. The food drive has grown. In 2023, KOIN reported that Page hoped to beat his record of more than 400 pounds. In its October 2025 story, OregonLive reported that visitors had brought 612 pounds of food the year before.
The same OregonLive story said last fall that Page was thinking about retiring the haunt. "It takes a lot of energy to put together," he said. This year it is billed as the 10th and final year of the fundraiser.
Details for this final run, as reported by Your Oregon News:
- Where: 1318 Hillsdale Drive, Newberg
- When: 6:30 to 10 p.m. on Oct. 23, 24, 30 and 31
- Admission: one canned food item per person, free on Halloween night
- Extras: free hot cider or hot cocoa
- Beneficiary: Newberg FISH Emergency Service Food Pantry
Those cans stay local. FISH provides emergency food assistance to Newberg and Dundee residents facing financial hardship and is staffed by volunteers, about 50 of them each month. The pantry's donation page lists staples like canned foods, beans, pasta, peanut butter and cereal. If you're going through more than once, bring a bag instead of a single can.
Harvest Moon's storefront closes, and the bar keeps going
On Saturday, Oct. 24, two farewells overlap. While the Haunted Porch opens for its final Saturday before Halloween, Harvest Moon Sangria Bar holds a closing party at its storefront on East First Street.
Newsberg reported that the building at 503 E. First St. was listed for sale in September. Owner Jules Moseley's last day open in the storefront was Friday, Oct. 16. The party starts at 6 p.m. on Oct. 24 with a live DJ and food. Moseley will park the Harvest Moon Traveling Sangria Bar out front and pour sangria and other drinks from its full bar.
The business itself continues. Moseley told Newsberg she is open to a Newberg storefront again, and the cart keeps Harvest Moon running in the meantime. In a post Newsberg quoted, she wrote, "Harvest Moon isn't dying. She's just growing wheels."
You can see the pattern in both stories. The Haunted Porch depends on one person building props in a garage every fall. Harvest Moon depends on one owner deciding how to keep the doors open. When something changes for that one person, the tradition changes with them, and usually with little warning.
Halloween week, day by day
The organized events help fill in the rest of the calendar, and they are easy to combine with the two farewells. Halloween falls on a Saturday this year, so the evening events don't have to compete with a school night.
| Date | Event | Where | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fri., Oct. 23 | The Haunted Porch | 1318 Hillsdale Drive | 6:30–10 p.m. |
| Sat., Oct. 24 | Harvest Moon farewell party | 503 E. First St. | 6 p.m. |
| Sat., Oct. 24 | The Haunted Porch | 1318 Hillsdale Drive | 6:30–10 p.m. |
| Sun., Oct. 25 | Newberg Animal Shelter dog costume contest | Chehalem Valley Brewing, 2515 E. Portland Road | 2:30 p.m. |
| Fri., Oct. 30 | The Haunted Porch | 1318 Hillsdale Drive | 6:30–10 p.m. |
| Sat., Oct. 31 | Halloween Bash | Stumptown Taps, 2401 Portland Road | All day |
| Sat., Oct. 31 | Trick or Treat Street | East First Street, downtown | 4:30–6:30 p.m. |
| Sat., Oct. 31 | Newberg Halloween Bash | Stoller Wine Bar, 1016 S. Center St. | 6:30–9 p.m. |
| Sat., Oct. 31 | The Haunted Porch, free entry | 1318 Hillsdale Drive | 6:30–10 p.m. |
Admission to the shelter's dog costume contest is free. Prizes are awarded for most hilarious, most creative, cutest or scariest, and best of show, and every pet entered goes home with a gift bag. The Your Oregon News roundup links to preregistration.
How Halloween night lines up
The Saturday-night schedule works as a single route, and every stop runs into the next one.
- 4:30 p.m., East First Street. Trick or Treat Street is sponsored by the Newberg Downtown Coalition together with the city. Participating businesses hand out candy to kids in costume, and volunteers from the city and the local Kiwanis club help keep everyone safe. The evening also has a pet costume contest, live music and community charity haunts.
- Before 6:30 p.m., the trunk-or-treat. This year organizers are partnering with Connections NW, a Newberg-based support agency, on a family trunk-or-treat. The first 100 kids get a free light-up pumpkin tote, so families who want one should arrive early.
- 6:30 p.m., two directions. Adults can go to the Newberg Halloween Bash at Stoller Wine Bar. Tickets are free, New Old Stock is playing live, and the evening includes a costume contest with raffle prizes for best group and best individual, themed food like Mummy Dogs, and holiday cocktails. Families with older kids can go to Hillsdale Drive instead, where the Haunted Porch opens for the last time with free entry.
Stumptown Taps' all-day bash, with a raffle and costume contests, covers anyone who would rather celebrate earlier in the day.
What's opening as these close
The calendar is also adding things. On East Ninth Street, Caravan Coffee's tasting room at 2750 E. Ninth St. now offers five guided coffee flights. Each one compares origin, roast level, brewing method, espresso preparation or milk, and they cost $25 or $30, according to Newsberg. One flight serves a single coffee four ways, and others compare three pour-overs side by side. That makes a good chilly-morning plan for the week after Halloween.
North of downtown, the Hess Creek Nature Preserve is expected to have a soft opening near the end of 2026. The preserve covers 54 acres east of the Collina development along Mountainview Drive. An old dam has been removed, the pond behind it is gone, and the creek is flowing again under two new pedestrian bridges. The first phase brings a parking lot, a restroom and nearly a mile of paved path. The grand opening planned for spring 2027 adds an overlook, another mile of wood-chip trail, a smaller bridge and a sundial art installation built around a 42-inch Douglas fir on the preserve's east side. Ashley Parrish, president of the Hess Creek Preserve Project, told Newsberg she hopes it becomes "a place people can come to experience nature, connect with nature." No specific opening date has been announced yet.
There are four nights left at the Haunted Porch, two Fridays and two Saturdays, and only one sendoff for Harvest Moon's storefront, at 6 p.m. on Oct. 24.
If you have a favorite Newberg Halloween memory, from the Haunted Porch or anywhere else in town, I'd love to hear it. Reach out to Stacey McGhehey anytime. Let's Connect. Smile! Relax! Enjoy!
