Navigating a world-record corn maze tests the human psyche

Deep inside one of the world’s largest corn mazes, where the tri-tip sandwiches and soft-serve ice cream purchased at the concession stand have become but a memory and all that can be seen in any direction are dirt paths and dead-end walls of green plants whispering in the breeze, people tend to reveal themselves.

From humble beginnings with a not-very-impressive pumpkin patch two decades ago, a farming family in this Solano County town decided to move into the corn maze game, hoping to have some seasonal fun and earn a little extra cash. And then, fueled by corny ambition and creative use of Excel spreadsheets, the Cooley family of Dixon went big. Really big.

Their Cool Patch Pumpkins corn maze has caused traffic back-ups on Interstate 80. It has prompted a frenzy of 911 calls to the Solano County Sheriff’s Department from people who find themselves lost in the labyrinth. It has twice earned a Guinness World Record as the world’s largest corn maze. And in doing so, it has become “a big part” of the farm’s revenue, according to Tayler Cooley, despite the vast acreage the family farms year-round.

Over the years, the maze has also served as a towering 60-acre experiment in human psychology.

“You can learn a lot” about a person from how they behave in a corn maze, said Brett Herbst, who said he built the first one west of the Mississippi in 1996, and now has a company, the Maize, that designs and builds them each fall for farmers around the country. (Cool Patch is not one of his customers.)

Minions created from hay bales greet drivers en route to Cool Patch Pumpkins in Dixon.

(Hector Amezcua / The Sacramento Bee)

Some people, it turns out, approach a hokey seasonal activity as they would an Olympic race: Speed is the goal. They grip their paper maps with tight fingers and fierce concentration. They blast around corners of corn, barely dodging small children. Woe to anyone in their group who wants to take a rest.

Others like to wander. They turn this way and that through the rustling 10-foot stalks, laughing when they get lost, and pausing for chats, snacks and selfies atop the four elevated bridges that connect different parts of the maze.

Sit quietly amongst the ears of corn, and it becomes easy to spot who is who:

“Guys, pick up the pace,” a young woman from UC Davis screamed at her companions as they ran by on a recent afternoon, explaining that they were racing against another group and could not pause to talk.

Contrast that with Amari Moore, 22, of Sacramento, who was taking a nice long break at one of the bridges. “I’m getting a little tired,” she said.

And then — and there is no nice way to put this — there are the cheaters. These are the people who, despairing of finding their way out honestly, simply smash and bash their way through the corn willy-nilly.

Or, those who lose all hope of escape and in their panic call 911 to plead for rescue from sheriff’s deputies. (The dispatchers tend to counsel waiting for help from on site — or taking the cheater’s route out.)

“You can learn a lot” about a person from how they behave in a corn maze, says professional corn maze designer Brett Herbst.

(Tayler Cooley)

Mazes and labyrinths have been around for thousands of years. In Greek mythology, the Minotaur — with the head of a bull and body of a man — was imprisoned at the center of a labyrinth in Crete and ate anyone who couldn’t find their way out. Theseus managed to kill the Minotaur, but still needed help from a princess to escape.

The farm town of Dixon, population 19,000, made its mark in mazes about 20 years ago — about the time corn mazes began to take off across the U.S. thanks to new computer programming that helps farmers plot out massive labyrinths with a sinuous web of passageways.

Matt Cooley, a second-generation farmer of walnuts, tomatoes, sunflowers, wheat and alfalfa, decided to grow a few pumpkins for Halloween and sell them by the side of the road. Then, someone gave him the idea to create a maze.

The Cool Patch maze, which rises from the flatlands near Interstate 80 just before the Sacramento Valley rolls up into the Vaca Mountains, got ever larger and more creative. Tayler Cooley, Matt’s daughter-in-law, is the designer. Each year, it has a theme. This year, the words “A House Divided Shall Not Stand” are carved into the corn, along with “God Bless America.” Is it a comment on the coming election, and the country’s profoundly divided electorate?

“This year we encourage our visitors and society as a whole to band together for the greater good of our nation,” the Cooley family explains on the Cool Patch website.

In recent years, the farm has also become famous for a symbol that people can get behind no matter their political persuasion: the minions of the “Despicable Me” film franchise. In recent years, one of the farm’s employees, Juan Ramirez, has crafted giant minions out of hay bales that are visible from the freeway.

Some scholars think mazes embody paradoxes. And it may be a paradox of modern agriculture that the Cooleys’ farm is not the only one that now brings in a substantial portion of its income from a maze that sprouts for only a few weeks each autumn. (The corn from the maze is harvested in November, Tayler Cooley said, and becomes animal feed.)

Four elevated bridges connect sections of the massive corn maze at Cool Patch Pumpkins in Dixon.

(Tayler Cooley)

Farming is a tough business, especially for small- and medium-sized farms, which can be rocked by the weather and fluctuations in commodities pricing and fuel costs.

When it comes to agritourism, corn mazes once lurked in the shadows of pumpkin patches, U-pick berry operations and apple orchard hayrides. But, perhaps because of those mythic roots and their ability to test the human psyche, they’ve exploded in popularity.

Herbst, founder of the Maize, said the first commercial corn maze he knows of was grown by a farmer in the early 1990s. Herbst built his own in 1996. These days, his company prepares maze designs for hundreds of farms. For an additional charge, his crew will carve out the maze.

“Corn maze has become a staple word for October, just like pumpkins,” he said.

In 2023, according to Guiness, a farmer in Quebec usurped Cool Patch for the title to world’s largest maze. But for the thousands of people who now view a trip to Dixon as one of their autumn rituals, it hardly matters.

“I grew up coming here,” said Becca Invanusich, 32, who was visiting on a recent Saturday from Santa Rosa with her fiance and two friends.

As a child, her maze style was to cheat: “I would just shoot right through it,” she said, gesturing to the rows of corn.

But as an adult, she said, she savors the mental challenge. Her group planned to solve the puzzle, no matter how long it took.

If you go: Cool Patch Pumpkins is located at 6150 Dixon Ave. W, off Interstate 80 in Dixon. Fall hours are daily, 9 a.m. to 8 p.m., weather permitting. The entry fee runs $22 per person. Children under 5 are free and so is parking.