The turnout beat all expectations of the staff of Amarillo Botanical Gardens for its new Halloween-themed trail. Cars began to pull up before the event and were parked all the way down Streit Drive and into the empty lot across from the gardens. On its first night, Oct. 22, the Trail of 1,000 Jack ‘o Lanterns brought in around 2,000 eager souls, young and old.

It took a massive effort in the last few days before the event to get 1,000 pumpkins carved in time, according to Greg Lusk, director of Amarillo Botanical Gardens, but it was well worth the hard work. Once the pumpkins are carved, there is a short time before they begin to rot, Lusk said earlier .

Lusk said that they had great community involvement before the first night. “We posted on Facebook that we needed help carving the pu

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