Connect With Your Community!
Connect With Your Community!
Certainly, the rodeo and parade tradition in Three Forks goes back a bit further than the nearly 80 years of its current incarnation. Perhaps as far back as the first horse race between Native Americans passing through our area, during which it is possible that a few equines went astray. This may be why the Lewis and Clark expedition had gathered up four or five stray horses before they arrived at the Headwaters of the Missouri River.
According to one writer for the Library of Congress in a blurb about Montana, “the horse has played an important part in the state’s history, economy, and romantic image.” There was indeed an economic need for skilled riders necessitated by all the rangeland, livestock and ranching in Montana, but perhaps the “romantic image” contributed too. And with so many skilled riders, it’s just human nature to have an occasional friendly competition. While the Three Forks area has had its share of fairs and other events that featured rodeo events, there is little mention of a rodeo as a main event in the Three Forks Herald until the August 7, 1930, edition.
Six Hundred People Attend Rodeo Sunday
About six hundred people attended the Rodeo at the Francis Lane place last Sunday, when some of the best riding talent of the state was present. Those who know horses concede that the thirty-five or so broncos that were mounted Sunday showed some of the finest action to be seen at any rodeo. This was attested by the fact that only three or four were ridden to a finish, the others not giving up.
The article goes on to list the management of the rodeo as Bill Kelly, Francis Lane, Johnnie Murray, Ted Lane and Albert Whitney of Manhattan. These gentlemen, who had completed their corrals in July of 1930, made further improvements to “Lane Brothers Corral” after this inaugural event and put on two more rodeos that year. The Francis Lane mentioned in the article is presumed to be Michael Francis Lane, father of Opal, Earl, Inez, Eugene, and Leo Lane.
The next year on the July Fourth weekend, the Lane Rodeo Corrals hosted a rodeo that was the main event of the “Pageant of the Old West,” which included a convention of the Vigilante Mining Association, a parade, a baseball game, a western show and comedy at the Ruby Theatre, and a dance at the Henslee Auditorium. According to the Herald article of June 25th, “Fox News Film service will have a movie photographer here to take films of the Pageant of the Old West and Rodeo…” Wouldn’t that be an interesting film?
Over fifteen hundred people attended the parade and two thousand were at the two-day rodeo, with crowds dwindling the second day due to “a disagreeable day with high winds blowing.” Sound familiar?
There were only the two “floats” in the parade. Mrs. Bates, who owned and operated a beauty salon, “transformed her car into a large yellow rose, from which appeared a number of beautiful ladies in the fashion styles.” The other float represented a Milwaukee steam engine and carried a large number of the Lady Firemen (an auxiliary organization of the local railroad worker’s brotherhood). Other entries in the parade commemorated Sacajawea (portrayed by Miss Ruth Young), the gold rush of the 1860s, Pat Lane’s arrival in the area in 1866, Spring Time in the Rockies (portrayed by Ruth Evans who played the tune on an accordion), and Calamity Jane (portrayed by Gail Colegrove). The Vigilante Miners participated in the parade as well as a number of rodeo riders, an “orchestra,” and the local Girl Scout troop.
The Lane Corral rodeos continued for a few years, but were eventually discontinued, most likely due to the onset of World War II. After the war, there was revival of rodeo and riding events and clubs, and the Three Forks Rodeo was reborn in 1946.
Now almost eight decades later, not much has changed between the rodeo events of the thirties and the now annual rodeo and parade.
The Three Forks Rodeo voted the NRA Golden Rodeo of the year in 2008 and 2014. Not only has the Three Forks lasted almost 80 years, but it keeps getting better.
