The buoys are out of the water at Duck Creek Quarry. The guarded hours that ran from the Friday before Memorial Day through Labor Day Monday, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily, are done for the year, and the shallow family swim area sits empty next to the deep end where the more confident swimmers used to go. In most years, that's the whole story. The sand quiets down, the concession stand locks up, and Duck Creek Quarry goes back to being a name on a map until next May.
This year the closure lands on a park that spent the summer building in three directions at once. A brand-new festival tested itself for the first time. A construction crew finished a trail on the exact schedule it promised. A garden that started as one couple's pandemic project picked up its first outside funding. None of that stops because the swim buoys came in.
What the Closure Actually Covers
Worth separating what "closed" means here from what it doesn't. The part that ended is the guarded, roped-off swim area with its posted hours. The park itself stays open from sunrise to sunset year-round, and under Village rules, that includes catch-and-release fishing, non-motorized boating, paddleboarding, dog swimming, and walking the trail system that rings the quarry. If your routine involves a rod, a paddleboard, or a dog that likes water, September doesn't change much. If your routine was the beach itself, that's the piece that's gone until next Memorial Day.
A Debut the Village Didn't Test Twice
The bigger news from this quarry happened in July, and it didn't involve water at all. Howard's inaugural Flannel Fest ran July 10 and 11, and rather than invent a new draw, the Village built a larger frame around one that already existed: the Three Rivers Roleo, a professional log rolling tournament founded in 2008 by siblings Katie Burke and Jacob Rick and recognized, according to WBAY's coverage, as the longest-running Level 2 professional log rolling tournament in the country. The Roleo had spent 2023 and 2024 at Paperfest in Kimberly before relocating to Howard in 2025. This year marked its 18th edition and its first as the centerpiece of a full weekend rather than a standalone competition.
The expansion showed in the programming. Amateur log rolling opened Friday afternoon, professional finals ran Saturday morning into early afternoon with 28 athletes from six states, and the Village layered in chainsaw carving demonstrations, an artisan vendor market, live music, and a fire department raft race that followed the competition. Admission stayed free throughout. Village Administrator Paul Evert framed the expansion plainly: "Last year, we hosted the Three Rivers Roleo and saw the opportunity to build something even bigger." The swim beach itself had to share the stage for it. A section to the left of the concession stand closed for the competition from Friday afternoon through Saturday evening, while the section to the right stayed open for regular swimming, a small logistical detail that says something larger: this park is now running two jobs at once during peak season, and the Village planned around both rather than picking one.
The Trail That Finished on Schedule
While Flannel Fest was drawing crowds to the quarry, a different project was working through its own calendar a few hundred yards away. The Village finished design on a new eight-foot concrete multi-use trail along Glendale Avenue in May, then sequenced the disruptive work to avoid stepping on the festival. According to the Village's own construction updates, tree removal and utility work ran through June, and the heavy concrete and asphalt phase was scheduled for July 13 through August 28, deliberately starting the day after Flannel Fest closed. Restoration work followed into September, which means residents who spent the summer navigating hard closures at Velp Avenue and staggered barricades near Maywood Avenue are only now seeing the corridor return to normal, roughly the same week the swim season itself wrapped up.
That timing isn't coincidental. Glendale Avenue is the road that runs past the quarry, and the trail being built along it connects directly to the park's own trail system. The Village has also budgeted $1.16 million toward a separate pedestrian bridge project intended to eventually link that trail network toward downtown and, further out, the Fox River Trail, with roughly 80 percent of the cost expected to come through grant reimbursement and construction possible in 2026 or 2027, per the Village's own staff reporting on the project. None of that is finished, and grant funding isn't guaranteed. But it points at the same pattern the Glendale Avenue work already shows: the access routes around Duck Creek Quarry are being built out with intention, not left to grow on their own.
The Garden That Didn't Wait for a Grant
Not every improvement at the quarry came from a Village budget line. The pollinator garden that runs along the trail started during the COVID-19 pandemic, when residents Ken and Judy Sikora saw an opportunity to turn an unused stretch of trailside ground into something useful for both plants and people. It ran on volunteer labor for years before picking up its first outside support this year, a $1,000 grant from the Canary Fund secured through the Gardeners Club of Green Bay, with help from Village Trustee Cathy Hughes and grant writer Ben Rodgers. The funds go toward more pollinator-friendly plantings and educational signage along the same trail the Glendale Avenue project just reconnected.
It's a small dollar figure next to a $1.16 million bridge proposal, but it's the same story from a different angle. People were already treating this park as worth the effort before anyone wrote a check for it.
What This Means If You Walk the Trail This Fall
Put those four threads together and the closure this month reads differently than it would have three years ago. Duck Creek Quarry used to run on one calendar: swim season, Memorial Day to Labor Day, full stop. This year it ran on at least four at once, a swim season, a festival calendar that debuted in July and is already being talked about as a new tradition, a construction calendar that was sequenced around that festival and is wrapping up restoration work this month, and a volunteer calendar that never really paused.
For anyone who lives near the quarry, that means the trail you walk this fall isn't the same trail from three summers ago, and it's not done changing. The concrete along Glendale Avenue is new. The garden has fresh signage going in. The festival banners from July are barely down. If the pedestrian bridge project moves forward on the timeline the Village has floated, the same trail system will eventually tie into downtown Howard rather than dead-ending at the quarry's edge. The swim beach closing for the season used to mean the story was over. This year it means the water side of the park just went quiet while everything around it kept moving.
If you're weighing what a home near this stretch of Howard is actually worth as the neighborhood keeps building out around it, that's exactly the kind of local detail Sandra Ranck tracks closely. Reach out for a complimentary home valuation or a conversation about what's changing in your corner of Brown County.
