Rodney Outlaw first found the place about thirty years ago, working off directions that amounted to little more than a general sense of which county roads to take outside Goshen. There was no billboard, no marked turn, nothing to tell a first-timer they were close. He got there anyway, and by the end of that first weekend he was hooked enough that he came back to every jamboree after.
That's still roughly how people find Ole Rex's Pickin' Park. Twice a year, in April and in October, a crowd that overlaps heavily with the same crowd from the last time gathers on a stretch of county road between Henderson and Goshen for the Henderson Bluegrass Jamboree. This fall's runs from Thursday, October 8 through Sunday, October 11, 2026, which lands on the event's usual footing, the second weekend of the month. The address is 236 County Road 2262, Goshen, AL 36034. Nobody checks tickets at the gate, because there isn't one.
A Schoolhouse Rex Locklar Wouldn't Let Go Quiet
The building at the center of it started as a one-room schoolhouse, built in the 1920s. The Locklar family owned the surrounding land and bought the schoolhouse itself once the school relocated to Goshen. Rex Locklar, back from service in World War II, started hosting Saturday night square dances there, and the gatherings grew from that. In 1965 the format shifted to bluegrass, and the jamboree that exists today traces its line straight back to that year.
Rex ran it for 48 years. When he died in 2014, his younger brother Wiley took over stewardship of the land, and the fear at the time was obvious: would the jamboree survive without the man who started it. It has, for twelve years now, and the stage still carries his portrait above it.
The Business Model Is Not Charging Anyone
Admission is free. It has always been free. The park and the event are run entirely by volunteers, which is the only way a gathering this size can afford to skip ticketing altogether. There's no advertising budget either. The current organizers, Jacob Littleton and Colby Carlock, put together a video a few years back just to get the word out, because there was no other way to promote something with no marketing line item. They called it a hidden bluegrass festival, and for anyone outside the immediate area, that's about right.
Costs still exist somewhere. RV hookups run a small fee. Tent camping is free. Walk-ins are welcome the entire weekend, no reservation required.
"As long as you keep the fans coming, the musicians coming, we'll do it," Wiley Locklar has said of his commitment to keeping the tradition alive.
The Offers Keep Coming. The Answer Is Still No.
Here's the part that doesn't show up in a typical festival writeup. Over the years, larger venues have approached the organizers with offers to take over the Henderson Jamboree, expand it, professionalize it. Every one of those offers has come with the same condition: move it out of Henderson. And every time, the answer has been no.
Shelby Cargile, one of the current organizers, put it plainly: Rex's name doesn't travel. Try to take it somewhere else and it stops being the same thing.
That refusal is the actual story here, more than the music itself. A festival that keeps turning down growth on principle is rare enough to be worth noticing. The choice isn't about resisting change for its own sake. It's about recognizing that what people drive in for isn't a bigger stage or a slicker layout. It's the specific patch of ground where Rex Locklar's family held square dances eighty years ago, and where his brother still shows up to keep that promise.
What the Weekend Actually Looks Like
Campers pull RVs into the spaces ringing the covered stage, which is attached directly to the old schoolhouse. Once people settle in, the instruments come out on their own schedule. Guitars, fiddles, banjos, upright bass. Jam circles form off to the side of the main stage and run independent of whatever's happening on it. Anyone who wants stage time can get it. That's not a marketing line, it's the actual policy: any band that wants to perform is welcome to.
That open-door policy has produced some real careers. Amanda Cook, Brandon Bostic, and Carolyne Van Lierop-Boone all played the Henderson Jamboree before going on to recording careers of their own. None of that changed the admission price or the layout of the park.
A few things worth knowing before you go this October:
- Dates: Thursday, October 8 through Sunday, October 11, 2026
- Location: Ole Rex's Pickin' Park, 236 County Road 2262, Goshen, AL 36034
- Admission: Free, walk-ins welcome all weekend
- Camping: Tent camping is free; RV hookups carry a small fee
- Nearby marker: A stretch of County Road 2262 is signed as the Rex Locklar Memorial Bluegrass Highway
For anyone who wants confirmation closer to the date, WBHM public radio's coverage and the South Alabama Electric Cooperative's writeup both go deeper into the history behind the park, and the Alabama Bluegrass Music Association's event listing carries current contact information for organizers.
Why This Is Worth Knowing If You Already Live Here
Most of what gets written about small-town Alabama festivals treats them as scenery, a nice backdrop for a weekend drive. What's actually happening at Ole Rex's Pickin' Park is a small group of volunteers repeatedly declining money and exposure to protect something that only works at its current size, in its current location, run by people who grew up with it. That's not nostalgia. It's a deliberate operating decision, made more than once, by people who could have taken a much easier path.
If you're in Goshen or close enough to make the drive, this fall's jamboree is one more chance to see that decision play out in real time. Bring a chair. Nobody's checking for a ticket.
Pike County has held onto plenty of things worth knowing about, and David Adams Realty has spent three decades paying attention to the details that make this part of Alabama what it is. If you're thinking about buying, selling, or just want to talk to someone who actually knows these towns, get your free home valuation or talk to a local expert.
