Last September, roughly 36,000 people funneled into six blocks of Courthouse Square for a free music festival. This September, those same blocks will host the festival again, plus a ticketed Everclear show one street over, plus a construction fence around the lot where the Public Defender's Office used to stand. If you live in Jasper, the fall of 2026 is when the "revitalized downtown" talk stops being a slogan and starts being something you can walk through on a Saturday afternoon.
One weekend, two stages, and a very different room
The Foothills Festival runs Friday, September 11 and Saturday, September 12 on Courthouse Square. It is free, it is rain or shine, and organizer Tana Collins-Allred confirmed to the Daily Mountain Eagle that last year's attendance came in around 36,000 people. For context, that is roughly two and a half times the city's resident population showing up in one weekend. New this year: a car show at the Jasper Civic Center, a 5K, and a local stage backed by Synovus.
What most residents miss is that Foothills weekend has a second circuit. One block east at 108 19th Street East, Alabama Stackers is running its own bill: Channing Wilson on Friday night before he plays the free stage Saturday at 6 p.m., then Everclear on Saturday, September 12 at 7:30. That gives you a real choice on Saturday night. Free country and rock from Collective Soul on the square, or a ticketed nineties alt-rock room a two-minute walk away. Bandsintown lists Alabama Stackers hosting national and regional touring acts almost weekly through the fall, which is a genuinely new pattern for a downtown that a few years ago went dark at six.
The lineup, hour by hour
| Time | Friday, Sept 11 | Saturday, Sept 12 |
|---|---|---|
| 6:00 p.m. | Local stage acts | Channing Wilson (main stage) |
| 7:30 p.m. | Deana Carter | John Waite / Shane Fontayne |
| 9:00 p.m. | Mark Chesnutt | Collective Soul |
| 7:30 p.m. (Alabama Stackers) | Channing Wilson | Everclear |
A few things worth knowing about the headliners. Deana Carter last played the square in 2016, so this is a ten-year return. Mark Chesnutt is on his 2025-2026 Redemption Tour. And Collective Soul recorded their most recent album, HERE TO ETERNITY, at Elvis Presley's Palm Springs estate, making them, per the festival's artist page, only the second act ever to record there.
A block that was a hole in the ground is about to be a building again
If you have driven past the corner of 19th Street West and 4th Avenue South any time in the last nine months, you have seen the fence around the empty footprint left by the fire that took the Walker County Public Defender's Office. On April 7, 2026, WBRC reported that Young Jewelers announced it will build a two-story flagship on that lot. Debbie Young Sanders and Iris Jarvis, the second- and third-generation owners of a business that has been in Jasper since 1948, made the call.
"Since 1948, it has been more than just a store, it has been like a member of the family, helping us celebrate engagements, weddings, and life's milestones," Dr. LoRissia Autery, co-owner of Walker Women's Specialists, told WBRC when the plan was announced.
Two things about this decision matter for people who already live here. First, a nearly 80-year-old family business chose to double down on the square rather than move to Highway 78 where the Bojangles and Mavis Discount Tire growth is happening. Second, the site sits inside the Foothills festival footprint, which means by next September, festival-goers will be walking past a finished storefront where this year they walked past a fence.
What to check before you head down
- ATMs on the square. Only Pinnacle Bank (off the square) and Synovus (18th Street and 3rd Avenue, one block north) are inside the festival footprint. Both are festival partners.
- Accessibility. The city rebuilt downtown sidewalks to ADA compliance during the last streetscape project. Designated handicap parking and ADA restrooms are in the footprint.
- The app. Jasper Main Street's app and the QR codes on the new downtown banners will pull up the current set schedule, festival map, and cooling station locations. Useful when a set runs late and you are trying to decide whether to walk over to Alabama Stackers.
- Roads. Blackwell Dairy Road reopened on June 15, 2026 after the bridge project, so the back route from the 78 corridor is available again. Temporary lane closures may still happen while crews finish paving.
- Smoking. Foothills is a non-smoking event this year, which is a change worth flagging if you have been going since the early days.
October keeps going
Foothills gets the crowds, but October is where the calendar earns its keep for residents. The 2026 Foothills Book Fest lands on Saturday, October 10 at the Jasper Civic Center at 10 a.m. That is the same civic center hosting the Foothills car show in September, which suggests the city is starting to treat the Civic Center as a real programming asset instead of a room that sits empty between graduations.
Alabama Stackers has a Christmas Day show on the books already, and the venue's calendar through October and November is filling in with regional touring acts. If you have not been in since it opened as a burger place, the room now runs a real live music schedule Thursday through Saturday, with kitchen hours until 9 p.m. on Friday and Saturday.
Under the Stars, the free outdoor concert series at 800 7th Street West, wraps its summer run in August with CashBack on August 15. Worth putting on the calendar if you have people visiting before the weather turns.
Why this fall matters more than last fall
The reason to pay attention to the fall calendar this year is not the events themselves. Foothills has been running for years. Book Fest has been running for years. The reason is that they are all now happening inside a downtown that is quietly rearranging itself.
On June 5, 2026, the city announced that community input from the FOCUS 2030 strategic plan had moved into its next phase, and the community meeting on June 4 reviewed what residents said they wanted the square to become. The Young Jewelers rebuild is one answer. The GSLI community profile puts the number of registered businesses in Jasper at approximately 1,133, with the daytime population climbing by nearly 3,000. Those are not festival numbers. Those are weekday-morning numbers, and they are the ones that decide whether a downtown breakfast spot survives.
For residents, the practical read is this. The fall calendar is dense enough that you can plan five weekends around downtown without repeating a venue. The construction is visible enough that the square will look different by next spring. And the events are big enough that if you have out-of-town family who have not been to Jasper since the mall was still mostly empty, this is the fall to have them come.
Thinking about your own place on the square?
Jay has spent 36 years watching downtown Jasper go through cycles, and the current one is the most interesting in a long time. If you own a home nearby and want to know what the Young Jewelers rebuild, the Rural King anchor at the mall, and the FOCUS 2030 planning conversations mean for what your property is worth right now, that is a conversation worth having before the fall market gets busy. Jay Barrett is available for a free consultation, whether you are thinking about selling this year or just want a clearer read on where the square is headed next.
