Lewis & Clark Festival

The children’s parade at the 2026 Lewis & Clark Festival in Cut Bank formed in front of Stockman Bank. Entrants lined up at 9:30 a.m. on Friday, July 24, and at 10 the Pet & Doll Parade started down Main Street. The 47th annual festival ran July 23 to 26, centered on Cut Bank City Park off East Railroad Street. The festival has no gate. “We don’t have a gate or anything; we just try to do the honor system. So we have a button that you buy it’s $5. It’s been $5 for 40 years,” the festival chairman, Ryan Eney, told a television reporter in 2018.

The five-dollar button

In 2026 the buttons were sold at Norman’s Sport & Western, Billman’s Inc., the Cut Bank Chamber of Commerce Visitor Center, and the City of Cut Bank. A button got its wearer a discount at the beer booth and a place at the all-you-can-eat chili, and every cook in the chili cook-off had to have one. The organizers wrote on the festival’s Facebook page that buying a button “allows us to continue on planning this event year to year.”

The Cut Bank Pioneer Press printed the organizers’ names and telephone numbers before the 2026 festival. Nicole Altenburg answered general questions and handled the golf tournament. Josh Larson handled entertainment and Saturday’s parade. Sissy Nygard ran the Pet & Doll Parade, Stephanie Eney the cornhole, Gail Davis the chili, Canon Bradley the goldfish races, and Sara Gordon the horseshoes.

Thursday softball to the Friday stoplight

The 2026 festival opened Thursday at 6:30 p.m. with Guns and Hoses, a softball game at the Cut Bank Sports Complex in which the police department and the fire department played each other for bragging rights. The Diamond Sports Dunk Booth was open all day Friday. From 5 a.m. to 1 p.m., people painted dumpsters at the Visitor Center. At 8 a.m. the Lewis & Clark Golf Tournament teed off at the Cut Bank Golf and Country Club, with a $10,000 Putt Contest.

After the kids’ parade, music played in the park from 1 to 5 p.m. The chili cook-off started at 1 and was judged at 5, and youth goldfish-race sign-ups opened at 1 as well. The festival’s notice for the races read: “Get ready, get set. . . blow!!!!” The beer booth opened at 3, and the doubles horseshoe tournament began at 5. At 6 the all-you-can-eat chili opened and Drew Landry began to play.

Food came from several stands. Northern Pines Nursing Home ran the Burger Barn to raise money for activities for its residents, serving burgers Friday night and all day Saturday. Borderline BBQ Fusion LLC, LH Legacy Grill, HuckleBeary Creamery, and Mark and Robs Eatery also sold food.

From 7 to 9 p.m. came Draggin’ Main, a cruise down Main Street. “Shine up those cars folks and drag main!! Nothing like reminiscing about the good old days going down main street!!!” the festival posted that week. When the cruise ended, the street dance began at the stoplight, with music from Stanton Creek.

Saturday on Main Street, Sunday at the Trestle

Saturday began at the Masonic Lodge, which served breakfast from 7 to 10 a.m. for a free-will donation. Parade entries gathered at BJ’s Casino at 8:30 and stepped off at 10. A Pioneer Press file photograph showed the float that football camp participants rode in the 2025 parade.

At noon there was a flag ceremony at City Park, the singles horseshoe tournament began, and the beer booth reopened. From noon to 8 p.m., Sunshine Stables, LLC kept a petting zoo in the east parking lot of the Glacier Community Health Center. Billy Burns played in the park from 1 to 4, the cornhole tournament began at 2, and DJ Salty Sneed played from 6:30 to 10. Adult goldfish sign-ups opened at 8. A fun run was also held that weekend, with sign-up at Canvas church at 7:30 a.m.

On Sunday, July 26, the Sky Riders Softball Duck Races started at the Trestle at 9 a.m. At 10:30, St. Paul Lutheran Church held a non-denominational service in the park. The Cut Bank Chamber of Commerce lists the next festival for July 2027 and has not yet announced the days.

Since 1979, at Cut Bank Creek

The Great Falls Tribune dates the tradition from 1979. In 2015 it reported the 37th annual festival on July 23 to 25, with the Lewis and Clark Days parade at 10:30 a.m. Saturday on Main Street and buttons sold locally at $5. A 2018 report from NonStop Local Montana said the weekend commemorates the moment Lewis and Clark came across Cut Bank Creek, in a town of about 3,000 that travelers use as a stop on the way to Glacier National Park. “The Lewis and Clark Festival was put together to attract people to town. To come in and just have fun, and enjoy what Lewis and Clark did,” Eney said.

In 2016 the Tribune noted that Great Falls had already held its own celebration of the explorers, while Cut Bank’s ran July 28 to 31. That year the festival opened on Thursday morning with the Glacier County Historical Museum’s Fight Site Tours. The museum’s exhibits recapped Meriwether Lewis’s Marias Expedition to the Cut Bank area, including an encounter with eight Blackfeet on the Two Medicine River. Visitors then drove out to the site itself, a one-mile hike with some off-trail walking.

The rest of the 2016 program included the 9th annual Guns and Hoses game, a Hillbilly Golf Tournament, and Crazy Days vendor sales. That year the Tribune gave the parade route as 1st Street. Wylie Gustafson played the chili evening until the street dance started at 9. On Saturday the flag ceremony was held at the Veterans Memorial and a car show at the Parkview Senior Center. On Sunday the Cut Bank Saddle Club held the McNutt Memorial O’Mok-See and stick horse races.

The 40th festival, in 2018, took the theme Roaring 40’s. People came dressed in 1940s clothes, parade floats represented the war years, and 17 teams entered the chili cook-off. “This year, we’re the Roaring 40’s, and so the chili’s you have to pick either roaring or snoring, and one is hot and one is mild,” said Gail Davis, who ran the cook-off then as she did in 2026.