Clearmont Day

From the Fire Hall to Branding Iron Park

Clearmont Day opens with pancakes. The 2026 edition fell on Saturday, June 27, and its announced program began with a breakfast at 7 a.m. at the Clearmont Fire Hall. A 3-on-3 basketball tournament was set to run from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. The parade followed at 10.

Through the day, vendors set up in Branding Iron Park. Amy Rowe, coordinator of the festivities, reported nine booths signed up a few days before the event. At noon the park served a free lunch, provided by the Powder River Energy Foundation, Pepsi-Co, the Clearmont Creek FFA, and the Clearmont Community Center Foundation. An antique car show opened at the same hour.

The afternoon held the duck races, which Sheridan Media called “ever popular.” The Clearmont Ambulance Board sponsors them, and they start at 2. An hour later came something new for 2026: the Clear Creek Dog Stampede, a set of Dachshund and Corgi races, with entrants registering on site from 2:30. Ken Wacker played live music from 1 to 5 p.m. A social hour with a cash bar began at 5, and a community dinner followed at 6. The Town of Clearmont’s own announcement also listed kids’ activities and a street dance. The Sheridan County travel office describes the day as a family-friendly event celebrating Clearmont’s history.

A parade for the 250th

For several years Clearmont Day went without a parade. In 2026 it had one again, in honor of the 250th anniversary of the United States. The Clearmont Historic Group organized it. Its president is Robert Prusak. Sandy Hirz, director of the Clearmont Historical Center, counted the line-up in early June. “So far we have 15 entries,” she said.

The history the group keeps is the history the day celebrates, and much of it turns on a railroad and a highway.

Huson, the railroad, and Highway 14

In 1890 the Pratt & Ferris Cattle Company controlled the valley where Clearmont now stands, and farming and agriculture have mattered there since. The first town in the valley was Huson. It had a cemetery, a post office, and a local press. It ceased to exist in November 1892, six months after its post office was established. According to the county travel office, the owners of the Burlington and Missouri Railroad Co. did not like a bend in the track, and they chose Clearmont instead for their new station. The town’s own record says Clearmont was platted in 1892 and incorporated in 1919.

In the 1920s a fire destroyed a row of buildings that included the Rock Hotel and Saloon, a meat market, and a confectionery store that was popular in town. The Clearmont Town Jail went up in 1922 and is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

For decades the main road through town was the Black to Yellow Highway, US Highway 14. Travelers between the Black Hills and Yellowstone National Park preferred it, and Clearmont, on the eastern border of Sheridan County, became one of northern Wyoming’s busiest communities. It had two grocery stores, a lumber yard, restaurants, and seven gas stations. In 1963 the Interstate 90 bypass between Gillette and Buffalo took that traffic away. Highway 14 still runs through Clearmont as an alternate route toward Gillette and Devils Tower National Monument. The Ucross Foundation, with its art gallery and artists-in-residence program, lies along the same road.

Clear Creek runs through the valley year-round, and the dog race that joined the program in 2026 took the creek’s name.