South-central Kansas town best known for the Walnut Valley Festival and its bluegrass instrument championships
Winfield is a small town of around 12,000 people in south-central Kansas, once listed among the hundred best small towns in America. It is probably most famous for the Walnut Valley Festival, held each September, which draws thousands of musicians and fans for the National Bluegrass Banjo Championships, the National Guitar Flat Picking Championships, and competitions in fiddle, hammered dulcimer, and mandolin. During festival weekend the whole town comes alive with yard sales and impromptu picking sessions.
The rest of the year Winfield is a quiet place with a historic downtown, the green Southwestern College campus, the cottonwood-shaded Island Park along the Walnut River, and more churches per capita than most towns its size — a legacy of the Chautauqua movement that flourished here in the late 1800s.
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Eating Out
Winfield's food scene is small-town Kansas: diners, barbecue, a few Mexican kitchens, and the chain stops along Main Street and US-77. The downtown lunchspots — including burger-and-shake counters and an old soda fountain — are the more characterful options.
During the Walnut Valley Festival, food vendors set up around the fairgrounds and barbecue smoke drifts through the whole west side of town. Festival fans come back year after year for particular trailers — get there before the dinner-time queue.
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Getting There
Winfield sits at the junction of US-77 and US-160 in south-central Kansas, around 50 miles southeast of Wichita and 200 miles north of Oklahoma City. The drive from Wichita takes about an hour on US-77; from Tulsa, about two and a half hours west on the Cimarron Turnpike.
Wichita Dwight D. Eisenhower National Airport (ICT) is the closest commercial airport, with daily flights from Dallas, Chicago, Denver, and Phoenix. No passenger rail; Greyhound stops in Wichita and requires a car or taxi to complete the trip.
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When to Go
The third week of September — Walnut Valley Festival week — is the obvious time. Book accommodation (or campsite) well in advance and expect the town to be busy for those few days.
May to June and September to October are the most comfortable months for a normal visit, with green prairie, blooming wildflowers, and pleasant temperatures. Summers run hot and humid into the high thirties Celsius; winter brings cold winds off the plains and occasional ice storms. Tornado season runs April to June — keep an eye on the sky.
