Poplar Wild West Days

Parades leave at 11 a.m. on both Saturday and Sunday of Wild West Days in Poplar. In 2026 they ran under the theme “Dazed and Confused.” In 2022 the Saturday parade, “Cowboy Hats and Horseshoes,” went down Main Street. After the Saturday parade passes, a ping pong drop follows west of the bank.

The celebration falls on the second weekend of June, though sources differ on its length. The Northern Plains Independent gave the 2026 edition as Thursday, June 11, through Sunday, June 14. Visit Montana listed June 12–13, and the Northern Rodeo Association schedule names only the rodeo, on June 13.

Pie, poker and a dunk tank

Most of the program happens in town. On Saturday morning a community rummage sale fills the bank’s parking lot from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. The Catholic church holds a pie social from 10 to 1, and all proceeds go to the Poplar Volunteer Fire Department. The department also runs a dunk tank. A mechanical bull challenge opens the evening at 5:30, and a live poker game starts at 6. Mars Daniels played the American Legion Club at 8 in 2026, and DJ Darren started the street dance at 9. Cornhole tournaments run on Friday at 6 p.m. and again on Saturday, at 5 for youth and 6 for adults.

Friday goes to the children. From 11 to 2 there are inflatables, pony rides, a petting zoo and wild wacky hair, followed by the Small Steps Dance Show at 3. The horseshoe tournament starts at 4. At 5:30 comes the youth tug of war, with up to eight teams in each of ten categories. In 2022 the Fort Peck Tribal Elves ran the tug of war, with four-person teams in divisions from 8 and under through adult women and adult men. On June 12, 2026, Western Native Voice, a Billings nonprofit, set up for the day to help people register to vote.

The 2022 program gives a fuller look at the town’s part. The Poplar Volunteer Fire Department held a barbecue at the fire hall on Thursday evening, after a fun run on the Fort Peck Community College lawn. EMS served a fundraising breakfast west of the bank on Friday, and the Poplar Blue Church served one in the bank lot on Saturday. Mechanical bull riding was set up by Dad’s Bar. Cowboy Church met at First Presbyterian on Sunday at 9 a.m., and the burger stand opened at 10 each morning from Friday through Sunday.

The arena on Road 1053

The rodeo is held at the Poplar Saddle Club grounds, just north of town at 5986 Road 1053. Saturday’s performance at 1 p.m. is sanctioned by the Northern Rodeo Association and co-sanctioned by the North Dakota Rodeo Association, though its points do not count toward the NDRA finals. The events are bareback, saddle bronc and bull riding; steer wrestling; tie-down, team and ladies’ breakaway roping; ladies’ barrel racing; and senior men’s breakaway. The stock contractor is listed as Big Circle Rodeo Company, and slack runs after the performance. In 2022 the rodeo started at 2 p.m.

A ranch rodeo follows on Sunday. The 2026 one was the club’s first, and two days later it posted: “Our first Ranch Rodeo was a success!” A team called Triple Threat took second in the Wild Horse Race. The club also noticed that somebody had flown a drone over the grounds on Saturday, and it asked publicly for the footage.

Poplar is paired every year with the Culbertson rodeo, and many of the same contestants enter both. In 2026 the two drew competitors from North and South Dakota. At Poplar no one made a qualified ride in bareback or bull riding. Tucker Tooke of Ekalaka won the saddle bronc riding at both rodeos, and Brooke Billingsley of Glasgow won the barrels. The NRA’s Joe Kusek wrote up the Kruse family of Bridger. Jesse Kruse, the 2009 PRCA saddle bronc world champion, won the team roping with Axton Mansch of Great Falls, who also won the junior breakaway. Lindsay Kruse placed third in barrels, five-hundredths of a second off first, and their daughter Paisley was second in junior barrels. “It was a happy, and little richer, rig,” Kusek wrote, “as they made the drive from northeast Montana back to the homestead in Bridger.”

Ten directors in 1954

On June 19, 1954, the Billings Gazette reported that the Poplar Saddle Club had incorporated with the secretary of state as a nonprofit. Its directors were David Smith, Tom Welliver, Earl Martin, Malcolm Smith, James Macdonald, Bill Berkin, Larry McGowan, Bill Youngman, Paul Atkinson and William Smith, all of Poplar.

The club is busy outside of June. On Wednesday nights in summer it runs the Omoksee Summer Series for young riders, in divisions from PeeWee Leadline, for riders 8 and under, up to Teen, for ages 14 to 17. Late in the 2026 season the races included a spur race, a Flying W race and relays. That series ended with a potluck finale on Sunday, August 23, after which a club member compared each child’s finale time with their first run of the summer. Some had begun the year on a leadline and finished riding alone. “All in all, I’m impressed,” the post concluded. Leftover series shirts and a water bottle found at the grounds were left for pickup at Independence Bank in Poplar. From fall to spring the club hosts bingo every other Wednesday at The Korner Bar.

The agency by the Poplar River

Poplar takes its name from the Poplar River, which joins the Missouri near town. It is a city in Roosevelt County, with 758 residents at the 2020 census. It is also the tribal headquarters of the Fort Peck Indian Reservation, home to the Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes, two distinct nations. The town holds another gathering in the year as well: Poplar Indian Days, a powwow on the first weekend of September.

The Fort Peck Tribes record that the Fort Peck Agency was established in 1871 in the old stockade of Fort Peck, which was bought from the traders Durfee and Peck. That site lay on a flood plain and flooded each spring, so in 1878 the agency moved to Poplar. Accounts of the Army post there differ. The Tribes give 1880 as the year Camp Poplar was established at the agency, while Wikipedia says the Army built it in the 1870s to oversee the reservation. Both agree on what came next. The Army abandoned the camp in 1893, and Poplar became reservation headquarters.