Northeast Montana Fair

During the 2026 Northeast Montana Fair, Susan Murr ordered a cheeseburger and a large Diet Pepsi from Sam Thompson at the Boy Scouts’ concession stand. Her name is in the building, more or less: in 1991 she and her parents pressed their handprints into the stand’s concrete, and they are still there. “I’ve always donated to this one because it used to be the Knights of Columbus,” she told The Glasgow Courier. “My dad is a knight. Now that they’ve changed that over to the Boy Scouts, I still need to support this specific building.”

The stand is one of many on the Northeast Montana Fairgrounds, which lie on US Highway 2 at Glasgow, in Valley County. The fair is run by the Northeast Montana Fair Commission, whose 2026 members were Paul McColly, Justin Fuhrmann, Levi Capdeville and Curtis Leader. The 2026 fair ran August 4 through August 8, with the 4-H horse show held ahead of it on July 30 and 31, starting at 8:00 each morning.

The Dreamland Carnival and the free stage

The Dreamland Carnival sets up on the fairgrounds for all five days, and every rider must stand 36 inches or taller. The Courier counted hundreds of people at the 2026 carnival, moving among dozens of games and rides and many brightly colored food stalls. A pendulum ride swung 11-year-old Milo Jones high over the grounds. “You go up, then you go straight down,” he said afterward. He admitted it was scary, and said he had gone on “out of curiosity, just to have fun.”

Brittany and Clinton Taylor of Saint Marie rode the Tornado, which lifted them into the hazy prairie evening and spun them. “I love the spinning,” Brittany said. She added that they had ridden everything that would take them, and that most rides were for children only. “They need bigger rides. More rides for adults,” Clinton said. Outside a food stall, Mark Pendarvis sat guarding his nephew’s prizes and belongings. “He’s out playing games,” he said. His favorite part was “just seeing all the rides and the people.”

Elsewhere on the grounds, the Independence Bank Free Stage carries acts through the week. In 2026 these were the “Imagiknation” family magic show, the “Dangermagik” magic phenomena show, and “Trancenosis,” a comedy hypnosis show with Michael Mezmer. Freckle Farm brings a petting zoo and pony rides, and a rock climbing wall stands beside the petting zoo, open from noon to 6 p.m. on August 5 through 8 in 2026. The Flatland Cruisers Car Club fills the event center with its car show from Wednesday through Saturday. During the night events, Nemont Beverage Corporation donates free water.

Murr, for one, did not count the rides as the point of the week. The carnival may be “a great way to have family bonding,” she said, but “the fair isn’t about the carnival. The fair is about 4H kids and their animals, and all the exhibits that go on with it. I think the carnival is just more of a bonus.” The exhibit halls produce their own winners. The Courier’s 2026 fair issue led with a photograph of Lakelynn Schmidt, who won for largest grasshopper. The Farm Olympics followed on the afternoon of August 8.

Rodeo nights and a $20,000 derby

The grandstand fills on four nights. On the Tuesday and Wednesday, August 4 and 5 in 2026, the C&B Operations and Glasgow Auto Sales PRCA Rodeo ran slack at 8:00 a.m. and the performance at 7:00 p.m. Tuesday was Cancer Awareness Night, and Wednesday honored the military and first responders. A photograph from the 2025 rodeo, held August 6 of that year, shows Laynee Simpson carrying the flag into the arena.

Each rodeo night ends with the Old Mil Wild Horse Race, sanctioned by the Wild Horse Association. Ahead of the 2021 fair, Paul McColly, then chairman of the Valley County Fair Commission, described it plainly: “That will be different. They are bringing in some other horses for that. It is very interesting. Usually, some people get packed off that get knocked out.”

Friday night belongs to the 20 Dollar Hollar Concert. In 2026 the gates opened at 6:00 p.m. and the music began at 7:00, with Jarrod Turner playing country and Blue Tattoo playing 1980s rock. A bring-your-own-bags tournament is free to watch.

Saturday closes the fair with the Milk River Motorsports Demolition Derby. In 2026 the Calcutta was held at 6 p.m. and the derby followed it, for a guaranteed purse of $20,000. In the Class 2 Main, first place paid $6,000, second $4,000, third $2,000, and the Maddog award $3,000. The Class 2 Redneck Derby paid $2,500, $1,500 and $500, with $500 for its Maddog. After the last car stopped, a live band played in the beer gardens.

A fairground on Airport hill

The fair has moved in both place and season. Writing her “Remember When” column for the Courier in August 2021, Gwen Cornwell recalled hearing that the Valley County fairgrounds had once stood on the Airport hill, “before my time and that of many of my friends!” Some readers, she wrote, remembered when the fair was held in September. Livestock exhibitors were then expected to go to school and register, after which they could check out to tend their animals. She called this “an inconvenience for school age exhibitors, or maybe it was a real excuse not to attend school.” For many years after that the fair was held in August, and by 2021, she wrote, it had moved to late July. She wondered whether the changes had followed the calendars of carnivals and other entertainment.

Carnivals, she recalled, once paid the Fair Board for the right to come. Something else had gone too: “Oh, something that may be missed by all is Horse Racing. That was always exciting to take in, especially if you knew someone that had a race horse involved.”

Carnivals, COVID and a missing Zipper

By 2014 the economics had turned. That December, after the 89th Rocky Mountain Fair Convention in Great Falls, the commission published a guest column in the Courier. It described board members going room to room to watch carnivals and acts audition for the coming season. “Reality is that most carnivals can and will set up in a Walmart parking lot for a weekend and make more money, than they could coming up on the Northeast Montana Hi-Line or going to small rural communities,” the commission wrote. Acts started at around $850 to $900 a day, plus mileage and motel, so fairs shared and routed performers among themselves. The column was signed by Fair Manager Doris Ozark, Fair Chairman Smiley Johnson, and commissioners Bob Hanson, Jerry Arnold, Adam Powell and Gene Hartsock. Johnson’s name appears again among the special award sponsors for 2026.

In 2020 the fair was largely canceled because of COVID-19. “We canceled all the big events, the night shows,” McColly told the Courier the next summer. “All we did was the 4H and the Open Class entries. Livestock. They put a lot of work into those animals and it was more confined, not so much congregation. It was a hard call canceling all that, but you [had the potential to] put 1,000 people in the stands and not much social distancing.”

The 2021 fair returned with Diamond Rio headlining and 32 Below opening, the Octane Addictions freestyle motocross show, a stick horse rodeo, and a competitive-eating relay among the food vendors. It had no carnival. “We were supposed to be getting a Zipper in, but Dreamland Carnival couldn’t get the employees,” McColly said. “Carnivals took a big hit with COVID. Next year, they said they are trying to be back.”