Trego Heritage Day

The day begins with cattle. At the 2026 Trego Heritage Day, held Saturday, October 3, on the Blarney Ranch at 191 Ant Flat Road, the first thing on the program was Coffee with Cows. A local rancher brought Dexter cattle for petting, and visitors could buy a commemorative mug and carry it to the MaggieRae’s truck to be filled. The festival runs from ten in the morning to five in the afternoon on a single fall Saturday. It is the work of the TFS Community Hall, the nonprofit gathering place for the Trego, Fortine, and Stryker fire district in Lincoln County. Its stated purpose is to honor the ranching, agriculture, and logging roots of the Tobacco Valley in Northwest Montana. The hall’s event page and the regional tourism listing place the festival at the ranch. One county event calendar listed it instead at the hall’s own address, 318 Fortine Creek Road.

Black powder, axes, and draft horses

The Daily Inter Lake’s preview of the 2025 festival listed what goes on across the grounds:

• wandering musicians
• a black powder shoot
• gold panning
• axe throwing
• cast iron cooking
• wagon rides
• a logging demonstration
• a traditional bow and arrow course
• draft horses
• a hay bale scavenger hunt for children

Melissa Wells, host of the paper’s Local Events podcast, said the day celebrates the three communities “in early 1800s fashion, literally!” Guests are encouraged to come in historical garb. Ahead of the 2026 festival the hall urged visitors to make the most of the day “by dressing the part!”

Two bounce houses, food trucks, and artisan vendors supplied what Wells called “a few modern amenities.” A pumpkin patch stands on the grounds. In 2025 large pumpkins sold for $8 each, and in 2026 the hall invited visitors to come pick a Halloween pumpkin. The 2026 black powder shoot added competitions, billed by the hall as “safe and fun for all ages.” The same afternoon it announced the shoot, the hall’s page posted the name of the Flathead Kootenai Muzzleloaders.

A roping saddle from Libby

Food for the 2026 festival came from five trucks: Holy Moly BBQ, MaggieRae’s, Moody’s, Montana Devil Dawgs, and Tacos4ever. On view at the ranch was a vintage roping saddle donated by Z Bar X Leather of Libby and auctioned for the hall, with online bidding opened in mid-September. The hall’s description reads as a saddler’s inventory. The saddle has a Mexican horn, a 3-inch cap 2½ inches high, a 15-inch seat with a Cheyenne roll, a 1½-inch cantle, and a 6-inch gullet. The restoration added new sheepskin, stirrup leathers, six saddle strings, six large and six medium conchos, a rope strap, latigo, and an off billet.

The hall behind the day

The TFS Community Hall founded Heritage Day to bring Lincoln County and the surrounding communities together around their ranching, agriculture, and logging roots. The 2025 edition, held October 4 from nine in the morning, was billed as the third annual. It was free, with donations encouraged and proceeds going to the hall.

The state has put money behind it twice. The Trego Fortine Stryker Community Hall received $15,500 from the Montana Department of Commerce’s Economic Impact and Destination Event grant program to support the 2025 festival. On March 16, 2026, the department announced another $15,000 for Heritage Day 2026 and illustrated the announcement with a photograph of the festival by Jack Wiley of WileyWorx. Kristie Eggebroten, the hall’s development director, spoke for the hall about the grant. Under the name Kristie Frankland Eggebroten, she is listed with the hall as a host of the 2026 festival.

The hall describes the people who plan the day as an “entirely volunteer planning staff.” On the evening of October 3, 2026, it thanked the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation for its gifts to those volunteers, and for one more thing seen on the ranch that day: “we had a lot of kids wearing paper antlers today at Heritage Day 2026.”