When the Pearl Street pedestrian mall opened in 1977, its founders never envisioned the spontaneous Halloween “mall crawls” that would take over downtown Boulder in the 1980s. Nor did they foresee the naked pumpkin runs that followed. As early as 1982, a newspaper editorial compared the “madness that is Halloween in Boulder” to Mardi Gras in New Orleans and Frontier Days in Cheyenne. In 1986, a Boulder Police Department official announced, “Revelers can have fun, but troublemakers will be arrested.” It didn’t take long, though, for the events to get out of hand — and the police eventually shut them down.
Teenagers and adults tried to outdo each other with costumes that included chickens (with huge claws and feathered tails) and cross-dressed brides and grooms. Meanwhile, a couple dressed as Frankenstein’s monster and his bride were married on the steps leading up to the mezzanine of the nearby Hotel Boulderado.
One couple even came to the mall as couch potatoes, complete with a couch littered with pop cans, bourbon bottles and taco chips. A man dressed as a parrot carried a tiny peg-legged pirate on his shoulder, while seven people decked themselves out as huge orange road cones.
By 1985, the crowd numbered 25,000. The event was held on the weekend closest to Halloween. In 1988, people kept showing up, and the crowd swelled to nearly 30,000 revelers. The police sent out dozens of officers, in addition to members of the department’s SWAT team who watched from rooftops of surrounding buildings.
In addition, police officers and Community Hospital employees created a medical triage and booking center in the county clerk’s office, then located in the downtown Boulder County Courthouse. People passed out, then they threw up on the carpets, which had to be cleaned before the next business day.
In 1989, the costumed crowd, estimated at 40,000, was the largest ever. The city had tried to lighten up the event by renaming it the “Boulder Boo,” but that made no difference to the participants. One newspaper reporter noted that the four-block section of the Downtown Boulder Mall had 96,000 square feet of walking space, which worked out to 2.4 square feet per person.
Costumes featuring famous people and political figures were in vogue that year, such as television evangelist Jim Bakker with his first wife, Tammy Faye, as well as recently elected U.S. President George H.W. Bush and first lady Barbara Bush. Others impersonated television characters including the Simpsons and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, as well as then-Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
At least half of the partygoers came from out of town. As the evening wore on, people got into fights, and more than 100 people were injured. In the later years, arrests for fights and property damage outnumbered arrests of drunks and drug users. When police spotters on balconies and roofs reported an injury, the officers formed into two lines — with medical personnel between them — and forced themselves into the crowd. Eighty-seven Boulder police officers, along with medical personnel, were deployed for the event.
By 1990, the Boulder police (under the direction of Chief Jay Propst) had had enough. Together with city officials, they organized a major public information campaign to get the word out months ahead of time that the mall crawl would no longer be tolerated. The city eliminated food sales on the mall, banned music and no longer provided portable toilets. Bars and restaurants were asked to close early. Within three days of the holiday, no alcohol (whether in open or closed containers) was permitted on the mall.
Boulder-bound traffic from Denver and elsewhere was redirected onto the Foothills Highway, where roadblocks prevented anyone except local residents with identification from entering the city. The mall crawl days were over, but downtown Boulder’s quirkiness picked up again in 1998 with the naked pumpkin run. Instead of elaborate and creative costumes, that era’s mall crawlers wore only shoes and carved pumpkins over their heads. A decade later, their celebration, too, was squashed by police.
Happy Halloween!
