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Heritage, fun come together

Fort Dodge celebrates with Frontier Days

By Kadin Luhman 4 min read

Fort Dodge celebrated its 175th anniversary of settlement with Frontier Days at the Fort Museum and Frontier Village over the weekend.

Frontier Days attendees experienced a variety of attractions, including concerts, historical sites, family-friendly entertainment and the inaugural car show.

"This is the 175th year since the groundbreaking of Fort Dodge and our 50th anniversary of the museum," Jeanna Becker, the Frontier Days Committee leader, said. "We're trying to showcase what we can."

Despite some challenges, the car show had multiple participants, according to Becker.

"My dad is a member of a car club down in Council Bluffs," Becker said. "Unfortunately, he was unable to join us, so we're kind of just winging it. We've had multiple people asking for sign in sheets and everything was free entry because we wanted to make it fun."

Becker has worked on the Frontier Days Committee since 2021 and her favorite part of the event is watching people have fun.

"I love seeing the little kids' happy faces and all of the people's happy faces when they find something that is exciting for them," Becker said. "We have Nick's Kid Show, where the kids get to interact and join a band as well as a barnyard show. We also have Duke and Party Rentals, who come in and just do a killer job on a foam show that kids just love."

Justin Goodno, the events coordinator for the Opera House at the museum, said the family-friendly entertainment was his favorite part of the weekend.

"My favorite part of Frontier Days is all the kids acts like Nick's show and a lot of different acts," Goodno said. "There's a hypnotist and it's also the inaugural year of the car show. There's just a ton going on."

Another new edition to this year's Frontier Days was a performance by the Many Moccasins Dance Troupe.

"This year we brought in the Many Moccasins, a Native American dance group from Nebraska," Becker said. "They've been to multiple different countries and everything. Somebody stopped to tell me how wonderful their show was, so that was very nice."

A priority for the Frontier Day's Committee was to provide attendees with more live music, according to Goodno.

Goodno said that Saturday featured four musical performances from David Simmons, Evan Pratt and Clint Riedel, Stadium Drive and Tank Anthony.

For Goodno, booking the bands and artists provided a unique challenge due to their schedules.

"We talked to each of the acts separately and they are all touring right now," Goodno said. "We had to schedule them ahead of time and they were all more than happy to be here. It all worked out real well."

Frontier Days also paid homage to the history of Fort Dodge.

"We have our village, our stockade and we have the museum artifacts on display," Becker said. "We have QR codes that people can scan and watch a video that explains the history of the building."

Gene Stevens, an author and blogger for the Central States Historic Association, marked his second year having a table at Frontier Days. Stevens gave insight on the history of Fort Dodge as a frontier town.

"Iowa is actually the gateway of the American West," Stevens said. "Buffalo Bill came through here and the Lewis and Clark expedition started on the west side of the Missouri River."

Stevens expressed the importance of attending events like Frontier Days and learning about history.

"History is part of our heritage and we're actually all connected to it, we just don't realize it sometimes," Stevens said.

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