Essex County's Fall Calendar Runs On Two Timelines At Once
September 3, 2026
September 3, 2026
Walk down Montcalm Street in Ticonderoga on a clear September afternoon and you'll pass a historical marker referencing the fort that changed hands four times during the Revolutionary War, then walk another few blocks and find yourself standing on the bridge of the USS Enterprise. Both are real. Both are taken seriously by the people who built them. Neither one is pretending to be something it isn't.
That's the thing about early fall in Essex County. It isn't one season with one identity. For about three and a half weeks starting in mid-September, the county runs two timelines side by side, one rooted in 1776 and one built around 1966, and the same small towns, businesses, and volunteers keep both running at full strength at the same time.
Here's what actually lands on the calendar this fall, in order:
Four events, four decades apart in spirit, all inside one county, all within about seventeen days of each other. This isn't a coincidence of scheduling. It's what happens when a place decides that craft is its actual export, whether the century in question is the 18th or the 23rd.
The Star Trek Original Series Set Tour sits at 112 Montcalm Street inside what used to be an old grocery store. James Cawley, a Ticonderoga resident and, for most of his career, a professional Elvis impersonator, spent years building museum-grade recreations of the original Desilu Studio soundstage sets from 1966 to 1969. The tour is officially licensed by CBS and Paramount, and it isn't a prop shop approximation. The bridge, the transporter room, sickbay, and the corridors, deliberately built at odd angles to look longer than they are, all match the original blueprints.
This September, the tour marks 60 years of Star Trek with Trekonderoga Weekend, running Friday through Sunday, September 18 through 20. The headline event is the unveiling of a fully restored Galileo shuttlecraft inside a new shuttle bay addition, alongside appearances from George Takei, Jonathan Frakes, and Brent Spiner. Guests don't sit in rows watching a stage. They walk the actual sets, stand at the transporter controls, and for many, get their one chance to sit in the captain's chair.
A quick practical note before you plan around it: tickets for the set tour and its special weekends are non-refundable and tend to sell out well ahead of the date, so this isn't an event to leave for the week of. Ticonderoga is also a small town where several shops and restaurants close earlier than visitors expect, so a same-day plan built around dinner after the tour is worth double-checking in advance.
A week before Trekonderoga, the county's other identity shows up in full force. The Adirondack Harvest Festival, organized by Cornell Cooperative Extension of Essex County's Adirondack Harvest program, turns 10 this year on Saturday, September 19, at the Essex County Fairgrounds in Westport. In 2025 it drew roughly 3,500 people, a number that's worth sitting with given the festival has never charged admission and started in 2016 as a straightforward showcase for local farms.
What makes it distinctly local rather than a generic fall market is the detail. More than 30 regional vendors set up under the "Bees & Honey" theme this year, with food trucks like Papa Duke's BBQ, Lomelis Mexican Food, Full Cord Pizza, and Farmers Cone Creamery, plus a Local Libations tent pouring from regional producers. Champlain Area Trails runs a pre-festival hike on the Viall's Crossing Trail that starts and ends right at the fairgrounds. Adirondack Community Action Programs collects non-perishable food donations at the entrances. And because cell reception at the fairgrounds is thin, organizers post a plain reminder every year to bring cash, with the nearest ATM at Champlain National Bank on Main Street in Westport. That's not the kind of detail you write for a tourism brochure. It's the kind of detail you write when the audience is mostly people who already live nearby and know the fairgrounds well enough to plan around its dead zones.
A week after the Harvest Festival, Ticonderoga throws its own party, and the guest list tells you almost everything about who actually keeps a small Adirondack town running through the fall. FallFest & Fireworks, organized by the Ticonderoga Montcalm Street Partnership alongside the Ticonderoga Area Chamber of Commerce, takes over Percy Thompson Bicentennial Park on September 26 for its 9th year.
The event's growth from a farmers market with wagon rides into a full afternoon-and-evening celebration with a beer garden and fireworks has been underwritten, year after year, by the same rotating cast: Ledge Hill Brewing Co., Tromblee's Greenhouse & Gifts, Ti Automotive, Bain's Sunoco, the Ticonderoga Fire Department, and the town's own Emergency Squad, alongside foundations like Charles R. Wood and J.M. McDonald. Fort Ticonderoga itself sends its Fife & Drum Corps to perform in the park at 5 p.m., which is as close as the fort gets to leaving its own grounds all year. This is a fall festival paid for and staffed almost entirely by the county's working businesses rather than an outside promoter, which is part of why it keeps growing instead of fading after a few seasons like so many small-town festivals do.
The season's last major date belongs to the institution that started the whole conversation. Fort Ticonderoga's Heritage, Harvest, & Horse Festival lands on October 3, set inside the King's Garden among its heirloom apple trees, with Lake Champlain and the Green Mountains as the backdrop. It's the same fort whose marker you'd pass walking toward the starship bridge a few blocks away, and this fall it's also in the middle of programming tied to the 250th anniversary of the autumn of 1776, when the Continental Army fortified the site against a British advance down the lake.
Two institutions, two and a half centuries and sixty years respectively, both treating their own history as something worth getting exactly right rather than dressing up for visitors. That's the pattern worth noticing. Essex County doesn't pick a lane between "historic" and "quirky." It runs both at full commitment, often within walking distance of each other, and the residents who show up for FallFest one Saturday and Trekonderoga the next don't see any contradiction in it.
If Essex County is already home, the practical move is simple: block out the back half of September now, since three of these four events land within eight days of each other and none of them are the kind you casually decide to attend the same morning. Buy Trekonderoga tickets early given how quickly weekend passes move, plan meals around Ticonderoga's earlier closing hours, and bring cash to the fairgrounds in Westport. If you're weighing which weekend to prioritize, the Harvest Festival and FallFest both run free admission and reward showing up without much planning, while Trekonderoga and the fort's October program are worth locking in ahead of time.
For anyone who wants a closer look at what makes this county tick beyond the fall calendar, the Essex County neighborhood page has more on the towns, lakes, and everyday rhythms that make this stretch of the Adirondacks what it is. And if you've got questions about property here, or you're simply curious what a season like this means for a place you already call home, Daisy Blair is always glad to talk it through. Let's Connect.
With a proven track record across the Capital Region, she elevates every real estate transaction. Whether you are selling your property or buying a new home, her deep market knowledge ensures a seamless experience. Connect with her for exceptional, results-driven service you can trust.
102 VAN RENSSELAER SQ STE L RENSSELAER, NY 12144