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By Tim Ruzek

For more than a decade along the Cedar River, hundreds of Austinites got their frights from dragons, witches, ghosts, the devil and a host of other spooky characters at the Budd family home.

Gerald and Helen Budd, along with their sons Roger and Warren and local Boy Scouts, put on many free Halloween performances in their backyard along South River Street (4th St SE) overlooking the Cedar across from the city wastewater treatment plant.

“A dragon will rise out of the mists of the Cedar River at Gerald Budd’s annual Halloween show,” the Austin Daily Herald wrote in 1957.

Usually dressed as a black cat, Helen Budd made and distributed popcorn balls to – as the Herald described it in 1960 – an “onslaught of youngsters for whom Halloween has a special meaning because of the interest and ingenuity of the Budds.”

The Budds married in 1938 in Austin before moving around the country during World War II. They moved back to Austin in 1946, the same year they began a streak of free Halloween events at their residence.

When Helen (Ulwelling) Budd died in 2012 at age 93, her obituary noted that she and Gerald, who died in 1989 at 72, were “well-known for their Halloween parties.”

It was easy to find the Budds’ shows as they were “in back of the house with the big pumpkin on the roof,” the Herald wrote in 1958, calling it “Nightmare Junction.”

In 1960, the Budds hosted their 15th annual Halloween performances, which typically offered evening shows for three nights, including Halloween, after 7:15 p.m. They lived at 1300 4th St. S.E. (today’s site of City Concrete).

Online news archives stop referencing the Budds’ Halloween event after 1960, although Helen served as a judge in 1964 for a Halloween costume contest in Lansing.

That fall of 1960, the Budds’ eldest son, Roger, was 21 and getting married. Roger still helped his father that fall install a “complex maze of electrical controls which enables dragons to appear from the Cedar River behind the Budd home and brings ghosts and witches from the treetops.”

About 1,500 feet of wire ran through trees on the riverbank to power eight, hidden speakers. The shows also featured colored lighting in the trees, paper-mache figures, sound effects, skeletons, goblins and moving objects.

Characters greeting attendees included Dracula, Frankenstein, Alice the Goon, the Headless Horeseman, an ape, bats, dragon, scorpion, talking ghost, Troll, Linx, ogre, a witch riding across the moon, a stabbed lady and a dancing skeleton.

Small start leads to community event

In 1946, when Roger Budd was 7, his parents started the Halloween fun with only a couple of neighborhood children.

By 1950, the Budds’ third and final night of performances was covered by the Herald.

“You ever see a dragon come out of a tree? Or a little boy turn into a skeleton,” the Herald wrote in 1950. “I’ll tell you, bud, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet till you’ve seen Gerald Budd’s nine-act Halloween show.”

More than 100 people visited the Budds’ backyard the previous night when the show’s noise could be heard blocks away.

“It’s getting bigger and better all the time,” the Herald wrote. “Mrs. Budd provides popcorn balls, and music fills in until the show is ready to go.”

By 1960, the Herald noted “some 600 children” expected to gather in the Budds’ backyard for three shows on Saturday, Sunday and Monday (Halloween).

At its peak, the event had a cast of about 10 children, including the Budds’ kids.

On Halloween 1955, the Herald ran the headline: “An Eerie Night Out! Goblins Down by River; And Still More Tonight.”

“It was co-o-o-ld last night,” wrote the Herald reporter named Larry Scarry (likely a fictional person given the name and that he wrote it in 1955 as if he was a child). “Just right for ghosts and goblins. And believe it or not, I saw a ghost – a big, white one taller than my daddy.”

The following year – 1956 – news of the Budds’ show made state news as an article about it ran in other towns’ newspapers, including Winona.

“Tonight is the night for strange sights and sounds on the banks of the Cedar River,” the Winona newspaper wrote.

On Halloween 1956, the Herald’s headline for the show stated: “Goblins Ready for ‘Reign of Terror’ Tonight.”

“Goblins, ghosts and ghouls begin their annual Halloween antics this afternoon and swing into a full-scale reign of terror tonight for their one chance of recognition and appreciation in the United States,” the Herald wrote.

In 1965, the Budds moved to Ball Club, Minn., where they purchased the Ball Club Lake Lodge, north of Leech Lake.

Until then, Gerald Budd served as the local Scoutmaster with the help of Helen, who also led Austin’s Day Camp for Physically Handicapped Children.