The Big Timber Summer That Starts the Week After Sweet Grass Fest

By the time the parade barricades come off McLeod Street and the last car-show trailer pulls out of the Legion lot, most of the coverage of Big Timber's summer has already been written. Sweet Grass Fest gets the photos, the visitor spend, and the Facebook posts. What it does not get is credit for being the smallest part of a Sweet Grass County summer, at least measured in weeks on the calendar.

The interesting stretch begins a little over two weeks later. From mid-July through early September, three standing weekly and annual gatherings turn Big Timber into a town with a rhythm rather than a single peak. If you already live here, the fest was the loud opening; the season you actually inhabit starts on July 17.

A calendar built around Fridays and Wednesdays

Here is what actually anchors the second half of Big Timber's summer, all of it inside the town or a short drive out of it.