• Square-facebook
  • X-twitter
  • Instagram
Time to read
1 minute
Read so far

Fort Belknap Days changes to one-day living history event

Tue, 10/13/2020 - 2:38 pm
  •  
    Fort Belknap Director Jim Hammond speaks to a group of students at Fort Belknap Days in 2017. The event this year has been canceled for students, but will still be open to the public on Saturday, Oct. 24. (Leader file photo)
editor@grahamleader.com

Fort Belknap will be returning to the 19th century next Saturday as reenactors and historical stations are set up at the fort for their Living History Day. The event will be held together with the Fort Belknap Living History Association’s annual fundraiser Mild, Mild West...How the West Never Was, closing the day’s events.

Each year, the fort hosts Fort Belknap Days which has Young County students visit on a Friday as a field trip to the fort for an educational showcase with reenactors and then on Saturday welcomes the public out to the event. Fort Belknap Director Jim Hammond said this year the event had to be changed due to the impact of COVID-19 on field trips.

“The schools can’t do field trips this year,” Hammond said. “Now a lot of these living history guys that come here, they are reimbursed by the state, so they have to have that face-to-face contact with the kids. If they don’t have that face-to-face contact, the state won’t reimburse them. So, if the school aren’t coming, the state guy aren’t going to come, but we do have the private ones.”

Hammond said the fort has canceled the Friday event for students, but will have the Saturday event Oct. 24 open to the public. He said the event will be smaller than in year’s past because they will not have the state groups coming, but they will begin setting up the night before.

For the rest of the story, see the Oct. 14 edition of The Graham Leader.