BLACK FOREST — Following a two years absence, the famously bizarre and wonderfully unique outhouse races have made a return to the Black Forest, featuring six teams pushing self-constructed, mobile toilets through town.
On Friday (August 12th) and Saturday (August 13th), Black Forest community members celebrated the annual Black Forest Festival that included live music, plenty of food, a beer garden, one massive parade, and the not-to-be-missed racing of the outhouses
According to a source cited by the Black Forest Community Club, the races date back to 1976 when those that lived in Black Forest wanted to host a watermelon feed in a nearby empty lot.
The problem with the site was with all the beer and watermelon that would be consumed, there would be a dire need for toilets. This was when someone suggested that they move the two outhouses, which had served the community center for years until a sewer system was installed, to the location of the celebration.
Instead of simply taking the outhouses and loading them on a trailer, the opportunity was seized to see who could manually move the outhouses to the new location as quickly as possible. Thus the outhouse races were born.
From there the event has apparently had a bumpy history, disappearing for a time before coming back to the festival with an appropriate level of toilet related humor.
In preparation for this event, racers spend weeks picking themes, constructing specialized wheeled latrines, and mentally preparing for the multiple runs that take place in front of hundreds of festival goers.
Explosively popular, the event even comes with a set of very specific rules and regulationswhen it comes to the construction as well as the running of these portable privies.
If you missed it this year, don't worry the races are sure to return in future years, and if you need a dose of race-related strangeness before then, don't forget that the Emma Crawford Coffin Races are also set to make a return (after a two year hiatus) later this year.
