On the last Sunday in October, the picnic grounds and trails of Sesquicentennial State Park will fill with dogs in pumpkin costumes, dogs dressed as hot dogs, and at least a few dogs who will simply refuse to wear the hat. The park's Howl-O-Ween dog owner event, set for Sunday, October 25, 2026, promises games, giveaways, a pet costume contest and photoshoots, and it is open to anyone who can show up with a leashed pup and standard park admission.
The setting is part of the appeal. Sesquicentennial State Park, known to almost everyone around Columbia as simply "Sesqui," sits about twelve miles from downtown in the Sandhills region, a 1,419-acre pocket of pines and longleaf woods that feels considerably farther from the city than it is. The park's own manager, John Wells, recommends newcomers start with the two-mile Sandhills Trail, which is mostly flat and mostly paved and loops around the park's lake, passing open day-use areas, boardwalks over swampy lowlands, and a CCC-built spillway that looks like a set of small waterfalls. For a dog in a costume, that is a generous stage.
The park's name is a history lesson hiding in plain sight. Columbia was founded in 1786 as the state capital, and in 1936 the city threw itself a sesquicentennial celebration for its 150th birthday. The Sesquicentennial Commission ended up with surplus funds, and in 1937 it used them to buy roughly 1,445 acres of land for a park. The land was transferred to the Commission of Forestry, and the Civilian Conservation Corps assigned Company #4469 to develop it. The CCC crews built many of the park's buildings and its stone structures, part of a New Deal wave that saw the corps help build sixteen or seventeen South Carolina state parks in the 1930s. The park is often dated to 1937, when the land was purchased, and it opened to the public in 1940.
One of the more curious relics from that era is the park's steel lookout tower. According to a cultural resources study prepared for the Friends of Sesqui, the tower was originally built at Camp Jackson, the Army installation that became Fort Jackson, and in 1940 it was removed and reconstructed at Sesquicentennial State Park near the entrance. A fire lookout tower, relocated from a military base to a city park, is an odd piece of Palmetto State history, and it is the kind of thing a visitor might walk right past on the way to the costume contest.
The park has also changed with the times. After the historic floods of 2015, a 100-foot aluminum bridge was installed across Jackson Creek on the Loop Trail, spanning a misty marsh that Wells calls his favorite spot in the park. And for dog owners, Sesqui has a dedicated draw: a two-acre fenced dog park where dogs can run off-leash. That area requires a permit for each dog, available at the park office, and dogs must be present for photo identification to obtain one; visitors have reported a daily fee of about $4 per pet and an annual option around $25. Anyone planning to combine the Howl-O-Ween festivities with an off-leash run should sort that out at the office rather than assume the event covers it.
That detail points to a broader truth about the event: the listing is short, and the specifics are thin. The Experience Columbia SC calendar entry gives the date, the address at 9564 Two Notch Road, and the promise of games, giveaways, a costume contest and photoshoots, but it does not spell out start times, contest categories, judging criteria, or whether the photoshoots are free. Anyone making the trip should check with the park directly before loading a Great Dane in a bumblebee suit into the car. The park office can be reached at (803) 788-2706 or [email protected].
What is clear is the fit. State parks have spent the past decade courting a broader audience, and dogs are one of the easiest doors in. A costume contest is a low-stakes, low-cost way to get people who might not otherwise hike a trail out to a park they have driven past for years. It also puts them in contact with the park's history without a lecture: the same stonework, the same lake loop, the same relocated tower that CCC crews and 1930s civic boosters left behind.
And there is something fitting about a Halloween dog event at a park named for a birthday party. Columbia's 150th anniversary bought the land; nearly ninety years later, the city's dogs get to use it for dress-up. Bring a leash, bring proof of vaccinations if you plan to use the dog park, and bring a camera. The photoshoots, after all, are part of the program.