- For episode 143, see "Pioneer Days (episode)".
Pioneer Days is an event in Night Vale during which the Public Utilities Department cuts all services without notice. The celebration of this event requires the citizens to dress in traditional clothing worn by early settlers, such as overalls and soft meat crowns.
As the event has become increasingly unpopular among the public, the Public Utilities Department decided to promote it by opening an interpretive boardwalk and historical display in the desert outside of town. Upon entering it, citizens are presented with a display of bleached bones of some of their ancestors. Another attraction is an animatronic re-enactment of the battle for the scrublands in which the early settlers murdered the giant benevolent arthropods that used to live in the area. The historical society organizes a display of vacation films obtained from random citizens via yard sales, which are used to tell made up historical narratives. Near the end of the broadwalk Earl Harlan teaches citizens to prepare cherries jubilee, which is a goose over-fed with cherries and lit aflame while alive. Lastly, citizens are blindfolded, loaded into trucks and driven into the desert, where there are dumped to find their own way home, just like the pioneers did.