It’s a tradition that dates back more than half a century — one that awakens the inner detectives and stirs the latent explorers living inside certain members of the Wichita community.

The Wichita Riverfest is about to start again, and so is The Eagle Medallion Hunt — a popular annual contest that challenges Wichitans to search parks and sift through underbrush in search of a medallion worth $1,000.

The contest, which first happened in 1974, will operate just as it did last year and will continue with one big change from 2024: The clues will post at around 4:30 p.m. each day on the Eagle’s website rather than early in the morning like they traditionally did. The change was welcomed last year by those who work 9-to-five jobs and couldn’t spend weekdays hunting for the medallion, said Wichita Eagle Executive Editor Michael Roehrman.

The hunt launches Thursday, May 29 — the day before the 53rd annual Wichita Riverfest opens. Each day, the Eagle will provide a cryptic clue meant to lead players to a 2-inch plastic coin hidden on public property in Sedgwick County. The person who decodes the clues and finds the medallion first gets the $1,000 prize.

This year’s Wichita Riverfest opens on Friday, May 30, and runs through June 7. The first Medallion Hunt clue will be published on Kansas.com at around 4:30 p.m. on Thursday, May 29, and a new clue will follow every afternoon. The clues won’t run in the print edition of the paper.

The last clue will be posted on Wednesday, June 4, and the contest will end at midnight on Thursday, June 5, or whenever the medallion is found.

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Last year, the medallion was found by Mary Smith, a teacher from Mulvane. She found it on the sixth day of the hunt under a set of bleachers at McAdams Park, between the Antoine Carr Basketball Courts and the Charles “Goose” Doughty Jr. Tennis Courts.

Hunters are encouraged to keep in mind that no Medallion Hunt clues, nor the hiding place, require entry onto private property.

Whoever finds the medallion should call 316-268-6200 during normal business hours, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, and leave a detailed description of where the Medallion was found as well as contact information. The Medallion must be returned to The Eagle by 3 p.m. on Friday, June 6, or no one wins the prize.

The contest is open to residents of Kansas who are at least 18 years old as of May 29, 2025 Employees of The Wichita Eagle, the McClatchy Company, Wichita Festivals Inc., board members of Wichita Festivals Inc., and immediate family members of any of those groups, are not eligible to participate.

The very first contest launched on May 11, 1974, and was called the Wichitennial Treasure Hunt. The winner that first year got $500 for finding the medallion and another $500 if he or she also had filed a registration form before the festival started.

The first winner was Bill Wilson, a 17-year-old who found it in a tree in Oak Park on the fifth day of the contest, but he only got $500 because he’d failed to file a registration form in time.

The Medallion Hunt temporarily ended in 2001: Overeager hunters had begun damaging public property, including city parks, and non-winning teams had begun accusing the winners of hunting in the early morning, when the parks were legally closed.

In 2009, the medallion hunt returned as a virtual contest, where people solved the puzzle but the medal was only imaginary. It wasn’t quite the same.

Then, in 2011, The Eagle decided to revive the physical hunt for the medallion after years of requests from former participants and festival organizers.