SLO County farm debuts massive ‘Sesame Street’-themed corn maze. Take a look
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Brookshire Farms built a 4.5-acre Sesame Street corn maze attracting hundreds.
- Callaways plant 900,000 drought-resistant seeds, cut trails and install irrigation.
- Rising costs force a $1 admission increase amid $40,000 maze costs and strain.
Just off Los Osos Valley Road, a sweeping field of 10-foot-tall corn stalks depicts the outlines of “Sesame Street” characters.
This fall, Brookshire Farms in San Luis Obispo is celebrating the 56th anniversary of the longtime children’s television show with a massive maze.
The 4.5-acre maze contains dozens of winding paths that twist into the familiar faces of Elmo, Cookie Monster and Big Bird.
The giant corn maze is meant to entertain and confound the hundreds of visitors who dare to enter the puzzling attraction, Shawn Callaway, the co-owner of Brookshire Farms, told The Tribune.
As of Tuesday, Oct. 7, eight people had already needed to be rescued from the labyrinth, Callaway said, adding that the majority of participants can find their way out in around 30 minutes.
This year’s giant corn maze is open through Oct. 31 at 4747 Los Osos Valley Road.
Callaway said “love for the community” is why he and his wife — co-owner Gretchen Callaway — keep creating annual elaborate maze designs that showcase everything from beloved cartoon characters to spooky season staples.
How did this year’s corn field get created? Here’s the story behind the maize masterpiece:
What is Brookshire Farms in San Luis Obispo?
Brookshire Farms sells 75 types of pumpkins and offers extensive family-friendly activities including hay rides, a playground and jump pad as well as its iconic maze.
The Callaways first started selling pumpkins at a retail lot in San Luis Obispo in the 1990s — known then as Candy Cane Lane.
The married duo launched Brookshire Farms once they began renting the Los Osos Valley Road-adjacent lot from La Familia Ranch in 2012.
That year, they put in a tiny 1-acre maze that was “pretty bad” and planted incorrectly, Callaway said.
They learned the ins and outs of putting together a proper corn maze in 2014, when they joined forces with The Maize, a company that specializes in designing corn mazes.
Ironically, Callaway is allergic to corn pollen, he told The Tribune, as he sniffled through parts of the interview. That hasn’t stopped him from becoming the grower of the largest maze in San Luis Obispo County.
This year’s “Sesame Street”-themed puzzle joins a long line of extravagant mazes produced by Brookshire Farms over the past 13 years.
In 2016, the farm had a maze inspired by the 50th anniversary of “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.” Before that, there was a pattern packed with buzzing bees and another with the image of a colossal scarecrow in the middle, Callaway said.
What it takes to grow a ‘Sesame Street’ corn maze
Six months ahead of opening day at Brookshire Farms, the Callaways were already prepping for this fall’s corn maze.
Production began in April when Shawn Callaway started chopping up the ground after spring rains and his wife began designing the theme and structure of the giant puzzle.
This year, the Callaways applied to be a part of more than 35 farms across the United States and Canada growing “Sesame Street”-inspired labyrinths, according to The Maize.
Once Gretchen Callaway wrapped up the design, The Maize then built a grid that Brookshire Farms used as a roadmap to making the maze.
On the Fourth of July, Shawn Callaway planted 900,000 seeds of drought-resistant corn on the 4.5-acre patch.
Fifteen days later, around 850,000 corn plants had shot up five inches — the ideal time to cut the trails and mark the maze’s pattern, according to Callaway.
About 12% of the stalks were taken out to make way for 7-foot-wide pathways, he said.
Then Callaway and a small crew installed more than 100,000 feet of drip lines to supply water to the corn. They also carried in two bridges to different sections of the maze.
At these spots, visitors can step above the stalks to get their bearings as they navigate the maze.
During the growing season, the goal is to get the corn to around 8 to 10 feet tall, which is too tall to see over, but not so high that it’s claustrophobic, Callaway said.
“The growing season was challenging,” he said.
As of Tuesday, Oct. 7, the corn ears were about two weeks behind schedule due to cool weather.
Brookshire farms employee Grayson Paulus, in charge of making sure the corn was watered and growing evenly, said the hardest part was managing the sheer size of the maze.
“There’s the spots that you could tell that I was struggling with, towards the middle of the maze, where it’s harder to get hose lines in and sprinklers,” he told The Tribune. “Those are the spots that ended up being shorter. So you can kind of see the struggle and the successes in it.”
“Walking it now, I take a lot of pride in how it turned out, especially with how much work that I put into it,” Paulus said.
What it’s like to explore massive labyrinth in SLO
So far this year, Callaway said “solid numbers” of people have been entering the Brookshire Farms corn maze, with more and more people traveling from North County and South County to experience the SLO adventure farm.
When visitors step through the maze’s entrance, they’re met by a poster listing a few ground rules — no alcohol, no littering, no throwing corn and no running. However, the sign urges visitors to have fun and “go get lost now!”
Inside, towering walls of vibrant green corn stalks are packed tightly in every direction. Some paths wind up in dead ends while others take mazegoers deeper into the hedges.
Callaway said many people are surprised at how warm it is inside the maze. The corn provides some insulation from the elements.
It’s quiet too, he added, and easy for people to get turned around if they’re not paying attention.
In the first quarter of the labyrinth, a bright yellow bridge take visitors above the corn.
Here, you can spot pumpkins and baby Christmas trees growing in nearby plots of land and hear the hum of cars zipping by on Los Osos Valley Road before you dip back down in the maze.
The maze has accessible routes for those in strollers and wheelchairs, according to Callaway. People can also exit the maze at the halfway point if they want to end the experience early.
This year’s “Sesame Street” design takes about 25 to 30 minutes on average to complete, though speedsters have been able to finish it in half that time, Callaway said.
Maze participants can also play a game of bingo while wandering through the corn rows, which can slow down the experience to more than an hour.
If people get hungry while walking, they should avoid the temptation to eat the corn, Callaway advised.
He said people who steal cobs from out the maze will be disappointed by the bland kernels, which are meant for cows, not humans. After October is over, all the corn is donated to Cal Poly to feed their dairy bovines.
How much does it cost to run SLO County spooky season staple?
Callaway said the cost of running Brookshire Farms has gone up over the years.
He estimated that about $40,000 goes into making the maze. Beyond that, liability insurance has skyrocketed by more than 500% since the farm started and labor has been increasingly hard to hire, Callaway added.
“It’s tough to make money,” he said. “We’re struggling.”
The Callaways have closed down retail lots in Atascadero and San Luis Obispo, and are considering shuttering a Paso Robles location as well.
Brookshire Farms chose to raise admission prices by $1 this year to keep up with rising costs.
“We make a lot of happy families, but yet it is getting more and more difficult to try and make a full living,” Callaway said.
Visit Brookshire Farms: Location, hours and ticket prices
Brookshire Farms, 4747 Los Osos Valley Road in San Luis Obispo, sells dozens of different kinds of gourds, including minature, striped and wart-covered pumpkins.
Admission to the adventure area, which includes the corn maze, costs $16 on Tuesday through Friday and $23 on weekends. People age 65 or older can enter for $11. Children ages 2 and under get in free.
Brookshire Farms is open from noon to 6:30 p.m. Monday through Friday and 10 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday for pumpkin picking.
The corn maze and other farm activities are open 2 to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.
The farm will host special night maze hours from 7:30 to 10 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 17; Saturday, Oct. 18; Friday, Oct. 24, and Saturday, Oct. 25. Entrance costs $21 per person.
This story was originally published October 10, 2025 at 5:00 AM with the headline "SLO County farm debuts massive ‘Sesame Street’-themed corn maze. Take a look."
