Bronc Day is returning for its 86th year in Green Mountain Falls.

The Saturday celebration will feature breakfast, a parade, a local market, food trucks and a slew of family activities. New to Bronc Day this year: a beer garden.

“It is special, because of the love of our community, and then the history, too,” Lisa Bonwell, Bronc Day Festival committee chair, said of the festival, which started in 1939 as a way to welcome summer residents back to town.

“Now there’s a lot more people that live here full time, but our town at that time, nothing was winterized, so everybody came for the summer,” Bonwell said.

The name of the celebration is an ode to the town’s former horse stables. In its first couple of decades, the celebration saw more than 100 horses.

This year, Bonwell expects there to be about 30 horses in the parade.

“You can just have a vision of how fun that was with all the horses. So we try to keep our horse legacy alive as well,” she said.

The festivities will kick off at 7 a.m. with a pancake breakfast at Church in the Wildwood.

“The festival traditionally has had a pancake breakfast, which is a huge favorite. And it’s a way the community gathers — lots of people are back in town, and they see each other and so that is a huge thing,” Bonwell said.

The parade will begin at 10 a.m. with a host of local businesses and community organizations. Throughout the day, the festival will have about 40 vendors set up in Gazebo Park, along with kids activities like face painting, a science station, old-fashioned games and a magician. There will also be the beer and wine garden with food trucks, as well as a pie contest.

This year’s theme is “All Aboard for Ute Pass,” meant to pay homage to the Midland Railway — the first standard gauge railroad built over the Continental Divide in Colorado. That railway would bring tourists to Green Mountain Falls and surrounding areas for the summer.

In keeping with the theme, the Pikes Peak N’Gineers will be setting up a model train display at the Green Box Arts Studio.

Local historian Mel McFarland also will join in the celebration as the author of several books on the Midland Railway and its connection to Ute Pass.