Historic Colfax Downtown Association

Who We Are

Historic Colfax Downtown Association is a volunteer-run nonprofit with one job: turn Colfax from a stop on the way to Tahoe into a reason to stop. We don’t run downtown. We set the table for the people who do — business owners, building owners, sponsors, and volunteers who put in the actual work.

We got our start applying for a national Levitt AMP grant, making it to the Top 50, and not winning it. Instead of waiting for the next grant cycle, a handful of people put up $500 and ran the first concert anyway. That’s still how most things here get done.

What We’ve Accomplished

Five Saturdays, one closed street. Live in Colfax turns South Main Street into a free, all-ages block party five Saturdays a summer, closed to cars, right at Art Park. This year’s lineup includes Las Niñas Muertas, Love Mischief, Connor Hanley of Malarkey, Late for the Train with The Breakovers opening, and Matt Rainey and the Dippin’ Sauce — two-time Sacramento Area Music Awards Blues Band of the Year.

A festival with its own name. Iron Horse Music Festival is new this year — October 10, on South Main Street, a full day, more than four bands. It has its own grant, from the Levitt Family Foundation, and stands on its own: not a bigger version of Live in Colfax, a different event that happens to use the same street.

The Colfax Bazaar. The Bazaar brings vendors into that same building a few times a year, most recently confirmed for September 19. We’re moving vendor sign-ups onto a proper platform this year — unglamorous, and the difference between a market that can grow and one that tops out.

Showing up online, too. We run historiccolfax.com — event calendar, local history, what’s actually open downtown — and keep it current. Find the same downtown on Facebook and Instagram at @VisitHistoricColfax, posted between the big nights, not just on them.

Who We Need to Help

• Event-day volunteers — beer garden, merch table, load-in, for the concert series and Iron Horse.
• Committee and board members — preservation research, marketing, event planning, sponsor outreach. HCDA is volunteer-run at every level, board included.
• Sponsors — a vendor booth, a beer garden, a festival stage. Sponsorships fund events directly and get named credit.
  
• email [email protected] and we’ll point you at the piece that fits.