For two weekends this October, a former cotton plantation along the Big Black River turns into something closer to a neighborhood block party with headstones. Askew's Landing RV Campground in Edwards, Mississippi, hosts its Halloween Weekends on Oct. 23–25 and Oct. 30–Nov. 1, 2026, and the invitation is broader than the usual campers-only affair: day passes are $5 per person, and nobody has to pitch a tent to join in.
The shape of each weekend is the same. Friday nights open with Camp Store Bingo, trivia, a community campfire and a Halloween movie. Saturdays bring what the campground calls Magic Pumpkin Seeds, Halloween crafts, trick-or-treating around the campground, a costume contest and another community campfire. Campers are encouraged to decorate their sites — spooky, silly or strictly fall-themed — for a site-decorating contest, which in practice turns the campground's gravel and grass pads into a drive-through of inflatable ghosts, hay bales and string lights. The park's regular outdoor offerings run alongside the Halloween programming all weekend.
The marquee moment lands on the second Friday. On Oct. 30 at 6 p.m., the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile pulls into Askew's Landing, giving visitors a chance to see the iconic vehicle and take photos with it. The Wienermobile is a piece of Americana that predates most of the campground's campers: Carl Mayer, a nephew of company founder Oscar Mayer, dreamed up the first version in 1936 — a 13-foot metal hot dog built by the General Body Company of Chicago, with open cockpits in the center and rear — to carry the company's spokesperson around. The current fleet is driven by "Hotdoggers," recent college graduates who tour the country in the vehicles, and Oscar Mayer says it runs a fleet of six Wienermobiles across what it calls the Hot Dog Highways of America. A stop in rural Mississippi is a genuinely unusual sighting.
What makes the setting distinctive is the ground under it. The campground sits on the old Bridgeport Plantation, established in 1859 by Duklet Askew, who traveled from North Carolina with his brother looking for land to build a cotton plantation. Askew bought 2,000 acres northeast of Edwards along the old Bridgeport Road, cleared more than 500 acres for cotton, and built and operated a ferry across the Big Black River; in time he added a cotton gin and a general store near the ferry landing. The property remained in the Askew family for generations — Legends of America notes it was held by the same family until 2023 — and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, with the RV park now sitting within roughly 300 wooded acres. An old barn at the entrance is original to the plantation and once served as a seed house for the steam-operated cotton gin.
The land also carries Civil War history. On May 17, 1863, Confederates retreating toward Vicksburg after their defeat at the Battle of Champion Hill passed through the Bridgeport Plantation, and the property saw a skirmish during the Vicksburg Campaign; another skirmish took place at the same location later that year. It is a strange and rather affecting thing to consider while children in superhero costumes collect candy along the same road.
In late June 2023, the property changed hands for the first time in its long history when Dan Askew sold it to Craig and Jennifer Alsup, along with Luke and Kelsey Hall. The Alsups set about turning a quiet, somewhat overlooked park into a destination, and by their own account reviews climbed from 4.1 stars in 2023 to 4.8. The campground now advertises 97 RV sites, primitive tent sites, glamping cabins and a 15-acre fishing and kayaking lake. Themed weekends, crafts, scavenger hunts, karaoke, bingo, food trucks and live music became part of the programming, and the park's own materials lean into a stated goal of delivering "a little bit of weirdness" alongside the hospitality. A Wienermobile visit fits that brief precisely.
The Halloween weekends also serve as a run-up to the park's 4th annual Christkindlmarkt Christmas Market, set for Nov. 13–15. Admission to that market is free for paid on-site campers and $5 for other visitors, payable by cash or Venmo at the entrance.
For Halloween, the $5 day pass covers entry for visitors who want to walk the decorated sites, watch the costume contest or catch the Wienermobile without booking a stay. Those who want to make a weekend of it can reserve RV sites, tent sites or cabins at askewslandingrv.com or by calling 601-522-7190. The campground is at 3412 Askew Ferry Road in Edwards, just off Interstate 20 and the Natchez Trace Parkway, roughly halfway between Jackson and Vicksburg.
There is something nicely circular about the whole thing. A plantation founded on cotton and a river ferry, scarred by a war, held by one family for more than 160 years and then remade as a place where strangers gather around campfires — and, for one Friday night in October, around a 27-foot hot dog. The candy is a bonus.