Rowley's Red Barn, and the year it lost its apples

At 901 South 300 West, on the south side of Santaquin, with its own large parking lot. From I-15 exit 244 follow Main Street into town and turn south. The phone number is 801-754-5511, worth a call before a midweek drive to confirm the current hours. There is a second Rowley's store in Washington, Utah, near St. George, which opened in 2013 and is a separate five hour trip.

The Fall Festival runs for six weeks each fall, from the middle of September to the end of October; in 2026 that meant 19 September to 30 October. Weekday gates open in the mid afternoon rather than the morning and stay open into the evening, Saturdays open mid morning and run late, and the farm adds a few full day openings in October, so confirm the current hours before you go. Inside it are the ten acre corn maze, the six acre pumpkin patch, wagon rides out to the activity field, the pedal tractor races, giant slides, apple cannons, jumping pillows and zip lines, plus the cider donuts at the front.

The Fall Festival charges one price Monday to Thursday and a higher one on Friday and Saturday, with a full season pass and a cheaper Monday to Thursday season pass alongside it. Groups of five or more take a dollar a head off and groups of sixteen or more take two dollars a head off, and every admission includes one train ride. The store itself is free to walk into all year, and the festival admission applies only to the activity area behind it. Prices reset each season, so confirm the current figures before you go.

No. The Harvest Festival, which is the pick your own apple part of the farm's year, is not running this season, and the reason the farm gives is the spring weather. Utah had its warmest winter in 131 years, bloom came about a month early, and mid April frosts killed the blossom across the county. The Fall Festival, the maze, the pumpkin patch and the store are all unaffected. If picking your own apples is the whole point of the trip, call the farm first, because the season comes back when the crop does.

The store opened in September 1999 and the farm behind it is much older than that. The Rowley family have grown fruit in this part of Utah County since 1913, and Phil and Shirley Rowley founded the operation as Rowley's South Ridge Farms in 1984, planting apples, cherries, peaches and pumpkins alongside alfalfa. The cider mill was added in 2007, the Back 40 activity field opened in 2010, and the corn maze arrived in 2015 and has since grown to ten acres.

It is the activity field behind the orchard rows, opened in 2010, and the name is farm shorthand for the back forty acres rather than anything more decorative. Wagon rides run out to it from the front of the farm, and on it are the pedal tractor races, giant slides, apple cannons, a sandbox, a hay pyramid, jumping pillows and zip lines, with the corn maze and the pumpkin patch alongside. It runs a seasonal haunted program later in October, which is a different evening from the daytime version.

Not in St. George itself. The second location is Red Barn Dixie at 471 West Telegraph Street in Washington, Utah, which is the neighboring city, and it opened in 2013. You will often see it filed under St. George because that is the larger name in the area, and the practical difference between the two is a few minutes of driving rather than anything meaningful. What is worth knowing is that it is about five hours from the Santaquin farm, so the two are separate trips rather than one.

The store carries fresh produce from the family's own ground and from growers around it, bakery breads and pastries, dairy, cider from the mill added in 2007, dried cherries by the bag, and ice cream from the parlor that has been there since the store opened in 1999. The dried cherries are the clearest link to the wider economy here, since the ground within a few miles of the till grows a large share of the tart cherries produced in the United States and the family is involved in the growers' co-op that processes them.

For the store, yes, and it is quieter. The shop, the bakery, the cider mill and the ice cream counter work through the year, and the farm also runs an Easter event in late March, a Blossom Festival in the middle of April when the orchard rows are in flower, and a sunflower event in August. What is not available outside the six weeks from the middle of September is the maze, the pumpkin patch and the activity field, which is what most people are driving here for.