Smithfield Health Days

It runs for about a week each May, building to a full Saturday of events, and Smithfield sets the exact dates fresh every year. The 100th celebration ran May 3 to 10 in 2025, with the parade on Saturday, May 10. Posted dates sometimes disagree between the city, the recreation department and the Fun Run registration, so confirm the current year before you plan a trip around it.

It is Smithfield's signature community festival, a week of events each May, with the Fun Run from Mack Park, the parade on Main Street, and a park day at Forrester Acres. The anchors are the Saturday parade, the Fun Run and the horse pulls, and the week fills out with the Show and Shine car show, a chalk art festival, Battle of the Bands, a pickleball tournament, a mountain bike challenge and the Smithfield City Ambassador Pageant. It is held each May and has run since 1925; the 100th celebration was in 2025.

The core of it is free. Watching the parade and walking the booths at the park cost nothing. Some pieces carry a small entry, like the Fun Run, the pickleball tournament and the mountain bike challenge, which take registration ahead of the day. Treat the free parts as the heart of the week and the ticketed events as optional add ons.

The parade runs down Main Street at 10 a.m. on the final Saturday, from 300 South to 300 North. The park day after it, with booths, performances, horse pulls, the car show, a Blue Sox doubleheader and fireworks after dark, is at Forrester Acres, 100 North 500 West. The Fun Run opens the week from Mack Park, 325 East Canyon Road, on the first Saturday.

It began in 1925 as a single Health Day, organized by Summit School principal Sarah McCracken after a national call for communities to promote wellness. The first event was built around children's dental health, and students who earned a clean bill from the dentist got to march in the parade. The mayor liked it enough to make it annual, and over the decades one day grew into a week, so Health Day became Health Days.

The nickname grew straight out of the festival. Because Smithfield has held a health day each May since 1925, the town came to bill itself as Utah's Health City, and Health Days is where the name lives. The modern week frames health broadly, physical, mental and social, which is why it mixes a Fun Run and a bike challenge with a parade, a pageant and a park full of booths.

The big days are the Fun Run on the first Saturday and the parade and park day on the final Saturday, with horse pulls at the park. Around them the week adds the Show and Shine car show, a chalk art festival, Battle of the Bands, the Stratford Loosle young musicians cup, a pickleball tournament, a mountain bike challenge, a kids bike race, the Smithfield Youth Theatre production and the Smithfield City Ambassador Pageant. The exact lineup and times shift year to year, so check the current schedule.

They fall on different Saturdays. The Fun Run opens the week on the first Saturday, from Mack Park, with a 10K, a 5K and the shorter Mayor's Mile, and registration usually stays open up to race time. The parade comes on the final Saturday at 10 a.m. on Main Street, and after it the booths, performances, horse pulls and the car show take over the park at Forrester Acres.

Smithfield sits on US-91 about 12 minutes north of Logan, and Health Days centers on Main Street and Forrester Acres, with the Fun Run from Mack Park on the east side of town toward the canyon. Cache Valley has no freeway of its own, so from the Wasatch Front the way in is US-89 and US-91 over Sardine Canyon from Brigham City, about 1 hour 36 minutes from Salt Lake City. On the Saturday, expect Main Street to close for the parade and park nearby streets to fill.