Trailblazer Days – Opening the Last Frontier
Event Information
Date: Daily from Jun 12 through Jun 14, 2026
Time: All day
Address: Hot Springs County Fairgrounds
Hot Springs County Museum
Hot Springs State Park
Legend Rock State Park
THERMOPOLIS, WY 82443
Price: Price varies
Website: Visit Website
Trailblazer Days - Opening the Last Frontier is a living celebration built around 16 Mule Johnson, the freighter who helped shape the town’s famously wide streets. From the first note of a Dave Stamey concert to the last waltz at a dessert dance with Keith OBrien, this is a full-scale revival of Western craft, community, and courage. We map the whole journey: a championship chuck wagon dinner with crews who cook like the old days, emceed by cowboy poet and broadcaster Andy Nelson. Then the main event rolls out—a non-motorized parade featuring a working 16-mule jerk line hitch pulling three freight wagons and a sheep wagon, plus buggies, sheep wagons, a jail wagon, and more. At the fairgrounds, collectors and teamsters turn a “wagon show” into a hands-on classroom, trading restoration tips, harness wisdom, and stories from the road. If you’ve ever wondered how a long hitch “dances” through a tight corner, this is where muscle memory meets art. Thermopolis adds depth far beyond pageantry. The town sits in the Bighorn Basin near Yellowstone, a last-frontier landscape that forged cattle barons, sheep queens, and outlaw lore from Hole-in-the-Wall to the pages of The Virginian. The weekend widens the lens with the museum’s milk can dinner and a Sunday dedicated to tribal history: a guided visit to Legend Rock’s petroglyphs and a bison barbecue setting the stage for the Buffalo Initiative on Wind River Reservation. It’s a living mosaic—draft horses, mules, Indigenous trails, and the communities that keep them all in view. Parade entries are open to non-motorized rigs from across the West, and travelers will find lodging, easy access, and the world’s largest hot springs waiting.