Culture Brief
An ode to Des Moines' Beggars' Night
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Illustration: Maura Losch/Axios
For nearly a century, Des Moines children have done Halloween differently than the rest of the country: trick-or-treating on Oct. 30 by telling jokes at each house.
The big picture: Today, that history has come to an end, with most communities choosing to move the door-to-door event to Halloween.
Flashback: In the late 1930s, Halloween in Des Moines was a mess. Police logged more than 550 vandalism calls in 1938 with reports of fires, broken windows and soap-covered storefronts, per the Des Moines Register.
- City leaders had enough. Kathryn Krieg, then the city's parks and recreation director, dreamed up a creative solution: move trick-or-treating to Oct. 30 and ask kids to "earn" their candy by telling jokes, reciting poems or singing songs.
- Krieg called her plan Beggars' Night — an event that flipped the script on Halloween's mischief.
- And it stayed for nearly 90 years.
Last year, after storms threatened trick-or-treating on Beggars' Night, most metro communities opted to move it to Halloween.
- But that one-time decision stuck after the Metro Advisory Council sent out a survey asking residents which day they would prefer for trick-or-treating.
- 4,300 respondents — less than 1% of the metro's 750,000+ population — overwhelmingly chose Halloween.
Now, most metro communities have trick-or-treating on Halloween from 6-8pm, except for cities like Bondurant and Windsor Heights that previously chose to hold it on Saturdays to make the event easier for working parents.