Chinook Sugarbeet Festival

Shortly before eleven on the morning of Saturday, September 26, 2026, the Chinook Area Chamber of Commerce posted a short notice: “We are up and running! Come check out the 21st Sugarbeet festival!” Two minutes later it posted the prizes for the day’s mustache contest: a Black Stone grille, $50 and $30 in chamber bucks, and beard balm. The festival fills downtown Chinook, in Blaine County, for the whole of one Saturday, with food and craft vendors working the length of the day and a parade down Indiana Street.

The Chamber runs it. Its president, Daniel Dahl, told Hi-Line Today in 2025 that the event celebrates the sugarbeet factory, which no longer exists, and the school mascot: “Honestly, it probably celebrates more of our school mascot as the Sugarbeeters at Chinook High School in a way. Sugarbeets made this community really popular and grow into what it was with the factory and everything and then after that shut down we continued that legacy through our mascot and then we started the Sugarbeet Festival to kind of celebrate how this town was really put on the map.”

The order of the day on Indiana Street

The 2025 festival ran on a clock that began at 10 a.m. with a Suicide Awareness and Prevention Walk, sponsored by the Blaine County Health Department. The car and tractor show opened at the same hour and held until 4 p.m. under Dan’s Auto Parts. Shores Floral put on face painting from 10 to 1. A cornhole tournament, backed by the Eagles and the Mint Bar, started at 11 after an hour of sign-ups. At 1 p.m. came the pie-eating contest of B & B Buyers and Chinook Pharmacy, and at 2 p.m. Shores Floral’s dog costume contest.

From noon to 5 the Blaine County Museum showed an exhibit marking 100 years of the Chinook Lions and 100 years since the opening of Chinook’s sugarbeet factory. The parade lined up at Meadowlark at 3:30 and went down Indiana Street at 4. Half an hour later the smokestack of the sugarbeet factory was lit. The day closed at 7 p.m. with the Chinook after Harvest-Fest Concert at the Blaine County Fairgrounds.

The program shifts from year to year. The 18th festival, on September 23, 2023, had bowling and food all day at the Chinook Eagles, a 10 a.m. fun run with a prize for the best costume as a book character, and a build-your-own scarecrow contest at Inman’s Park. A sugarbeet decorating contest started at 11. The Taylor & Baird family played from noon to 4, a Lady in the Glass look-alike contest was held at 3, and the Sugarbeeter parade closed the day at 5. Shores Floral ran sales on fall and ‘Beeter gear.

Chuck Hewitt and the “Sugarbeet Crawl”

The first festival was held October 7, 2005. The Blaine County Journal traces it to Chuck Hewitt, who heard the song “Watermelon Crawl,” learned of a watermelon festival, and thought a similar celebration would be fun for Chinook. “Sugarbeet Crawl” came to mind, and it became the Sugarbeet Anthem. The town held a get-together to learn the song and dance, and three Gilbert sisters came and demonstrated the crawl. In the Journal’s telling, Hewitt became “the father of the Sugarbeet Festival.”

In the weeks before that first festival, residents were encouraged to write in with their stories of sugarbeet farming and harvesting.

Horses to the beet dumps

According to the Journal, the Utah-Idaho Sugar Company built Chinook’s factory in 1925, with parts brought by railway from Washington. In 1952 the company took the factory back, and parts were disassembled and shipped back to Washington state. By the end of production, some families had been growing beets for 53 years. In the early years horses pulled all the machinery and hauled the beets to the beet dumps set every few miles along the railroad. Trucks came into use in 1930.

Lucille Nash spent many years as the scale lady. In 2005 she and Roy Finely became the first King and Queen of the Sugarbeet Festival. Of 501 votes sent in, Nash received 107 and Finely 68. Dave Briere, who had worked at the U-I Sugar Factory since he was a teenager, was the first parade marshal.

The Lady in the Glass

Several events from the first festival continue, among them the sugarbeet growing and decorating contest, the fun run, the parade, and the car show. The Lady in the Glass contest began that year to raise money to refurbish her sign. Contestants came from Chinook, Havre, Bozeman, and Kalispell, and Iris Gilbert Hay, 79, came from Hood River, Oregon, as a special contestant. Bonnie Weber won and became the first “live Lady in the Glass.” Chuck Hewitt, entered as “Miss Sugarbeet,” placed second, and Holly Dennis third. The contest raised almost $1,000, and the sign got its restoration.

Alumni joined the band to play the school song in the parade. The organizers first tried to schedule the festival with homecoming, but weather and schedule changes moved it a little earlier in the fall. In 2023 the two fell on the same weekend again, and the Journal’s preview signed off: “Do the Sugarbeet crawl.”