Bear Lake Raspberry Days

Each morning of Raspberry Days begins on the stage at Heritage Park, 579 Buttercup Boulevard in Garden City. From 8:30 to 9:30 Carolina Linkogle leads free Zumba there. On Thursday, August 6, the opening day of the 2026 festival, Bear Lake Memorial Hospital served a free community pancake breakfast from 9 to 11. At 9:30 the pie eaters lined up for the contest presented by Chad’s Raspberry Products, and they were back for a second round on Friday. At ten the fair opened: craft booths, rides for kids, food vendors, and live music through the day, until 8 p.m. on Thursday and Friday and until 6 on Saturday. Smoking and dogs are not allowed in the park.

The Rich High School Band opened the 2026 stage on Thursday afternoon. Friday brought Desert Heart Strings, the folk rock and Americana duo of Jake and Melissa Haws, and then Holidae, a rock and pop band from Cache Valley. On Saturday came the country singer-songwriter Kayden Miner and, to close, Saddle Strings, a band the town’s schedule describes as playing “Cowboy music with the old time ballads and a contemporary flair.” The hypnotist James Daley put on a comedy show on Friday and again on Saturday, and bingo ran in several sessions west of the stage. On Friday and Saturday mornings, children 11 and under fished the Heritage Park pond with their own gear, and no license was required. Pickleball, cornhole, and a four-person golf scramble at Bear Lake West Golf Course filled the weekend, and the 5K left Laketown Park at 8 on Saturday morning.

A parade down Bear Lake Boulevard

The parade steps off at 6 on Thursday evening. Entries line up at 200 North, travel south on Bear Lake Boulevard, turn west on 350 South, and end on 100 West, where riders are collected at the Red Barn. The Bear Lake Valley visitors bureau lists floats, marching bands, antique cars, and drill teams, with candy and beads thrown into the crowd along the way. Martel and Rhonda Menlove were grand marshals in 2026.

Bear Lake Boulevard is also where the shakes are. In 2025 Cache Valley Daily called the festival’s raspberry shakes specialty items found in most eateries along the boulevard, Garden City’s main drag. A Rich County leaflet says a raspberry milkshake can be had all year, along with raspberry jam, Popsicles, noodles, and pancake mix.

Two nights in Laketown, one on the lake

The rodeo is held in Laketown, at the arena at 275 East 250 South, at 7 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. Tickets are sold online or at the gate. The festival’s notice for 2026 promised “two nights of bucking broncs.”

On Saturday night the Bear Lake Yacht Club runs its lighted boat parade from 9 to 10:30. The town places the route between the Marina and Ideal Beach. The visitors bureau has it starting at Blue Water Beach and ending at Bear Lake State Park Marina. A fireworks show, which the bureau says is best seen from Heritage Park, has ordinarily closed the festival. On July 31, 2026, the organizers announced that the show was canceled “due to the current fire concerns in our area.”

Theodore Hildt’s backyard

The festival is timed to the harvest. Garden City says picking usually starts around the third week of July and lasts three to four weeks. The Rich County leaflet puts it in late July or the first weeks of August, varying with the rain, the summer heat, and the hardness of the winter. It also records that one year a hailstorm wiped out the entire crop. The berries are picked as soon as they ripen, which the leaflet says requires bringing in pickers from as far as 150 miles away.

On August 1, 1985, the Logan Herald Journal told how the crop began. In the early 1930s Theodore Hildt planted a few raspberry plants in his backyard garden in Garden City. The berries sold readily at 10 cents a quart to neighbors and friends. About the time of World War II, when his sons LaVoy and Ivan were old enough to run the business, he expanded his acreage. By 1985 Ted Hildt, his grandson, and Ed Price, both partners in the family business, had 45 acres in production.

“The berries ripen slower in the warm days and cool nights,” Price said. “It gives them more time to develop sugar and flavor.” He added, “There is only a two to three day period when a berry can be picked before it is too old.” The pickers were mainly local high school students and housewives. After harvest, four of the family cut out the old canes by hand, working until the snow was too deep and starting again in spring as soon as they could get into the fields.

Harry Bennion’s idea

The same page of the Herald Journal announced “the 2nd Annual Bear Lake Raspberry Festival” for Saturday, August 3, 1985, promoted by the Bear Lake Rendezvous Chamber of Commerce. Mayor Paul Webb gave the paper this account of how it started: “Two years ago then president of the Chamber of Commerce Harry Bennion, a Garden City businessman, expressed a desire to stimulate some type of family activity in the area. This desire started the ball rolling for the Raspberry Days Festival.”

Later accounts differ on the first year. Cache Valley Daily dates the festival to 1984 and says it began as a simple craft fair. ABC4, reporting in 2025, said it began in 1985 as a small parade with a few people. That summer ABC4 marked the 40th anniversary, and the News-Examiner announced the 41st year.

The 1985 day began with a chuckwagon breakfast at 7: flapjacks with maple syrup, sausage, eggs, hashbrowns, and juice, at $3 for adults, $2 for children, and free under 4. The 10K Raspberry Run left Bear Lake West at 9. At 10:30 girls aged 4 to 6 competed for Little Miss Berry Princess, and the winner rode in the parade on a float with her court. The parade started at noon behind grand marshal Dick Motta, coach of the Dallas Mavericks, who was born and raised in Grace, Idaho. Max Hill, a chamber organizer, said people who saw the previous year’s parade of 37 entries called it “the best small parade they had seen.”

The afternoon brought an EMT regional competition behind the LDS chapel, where teams responded to simulated accidents. Ruth Bowcutt directed local children in her play “Could It Be True Mother Goose?” at the Town Hall, with admission at 50 cents. At 5:30, at the Little Buckaroo Rodeo at Sweetwater Resort Stables, children 12 and under rode sheep, bucking ponies, and calves and scrambled after wild sheep and chickens. At 9 the Peterson Bros. band of Logan played a country western street dance next to the Post Office. Someone would take home the prize, an 11-foot Foxy II boat with an 18-horsepower motor and a trailer.

Webb credited Virginia Archer of Washington, D.C., whose only connection to the valley was property in Paris Canyon. She had arranged a Caribbean cruise given away at the festival before, donated all of the 1985 advertising, and was flying out for the day. Webb predicted the festival would become “the main summer event in Garden City.” A Rich County leaflet later described the festival with a horse show, a Miss Berry Princess contest, and a Saturday parade billed as “The biggest Little Parade in the West.”

The virus in the canes

In 2006 the Herald Journal reported that Garden City’s raspberry ground was going to development. Brent Black, a fruit specialist with Utah State University Extension, said many Garden City growers had sold their land after bushy dwarf virus got into the plants of northern Utah. Laketown, just to the south, then had at least five commercial growers to Garden City’s two. “When the berries all got sick, some of us had small patches in our backyard,” said Jane Floyd of Laketown, whose family put in nearly five acres of virus-resistant plants. “Garden City growers, the big ones, quit and most of their property was sold for development.”

Ned and Tammy Calder of Garden City lost every plant to the virus and replanted on fresh ground. That August they sold from a fruit stand at Raspberry Days, and Tammy Calder brought her homemade chocolate-covered raspberries.

By 2025, according to ABC4, some visitors booked hotel rooms a year ahead. The Utah Department of Transportation suspended construction in Logan Canyon for the weekend, and officers from Cache County and the Utah Highway Patrol came to help. “The entire population of Rich County is under 3,000 people,” said Pat Argyle, the Garden City council member who oversees the festival. “But more than 50,000 people are expected to come up and spend the weekend out here.” Most of the work, he said, is done by volunteers: “We actually start in October again for the next year and just keep working at it constantly.”