Helena Montana’s Vigilante Day Parade
Helena, Montana has a unique form of parade on the first week of May each year. It is the Vigilante Day Parade.
It is composed entirely of high school students.
Yes, high school students.
And they make their own floats themselves.
With unique themes; Examples- Vigilante hanging, barrooms brawls, female boxing, gold rush, lynchings, the Unabomber, Native culture and forest fires.
Like I said- unique……
However- they all pertain to the history, events and legends of the area. Vigilante Day is a Helena holiday marking the time in which area citizens banded together to stop the raids on gold shipments and pioneers that occurred on a stagecoach road running from the gold fields of Helena to the nearest town of real civilization. It turned out the ringleader of the whole shebang was none other than a local Sheriff himself who had men watching on newcomers and shipments about to embark on the trail and would put chalk marks on horses and wagons that were deemed to be worthwhile and easy targets. A special building was made for the hanging of five of the thieves, including the Sheriff gone wrong, in Virginia City. It still stands to this day. All told 14 thieves were hanged between 1864 and 1870.
Actual hanging building in Virginia City, Montana.
As with all mining towns in the West the gold attracted solitary men who were followed out by women who would work to make their lives less solitary. Also the booze peddlers would show up to make sure the miners had something to spend their money on besides the ladies of the night. This seemed to be a popular theme on a lot of the floats (remember- these are high school kids with hormones busting at their seams.)
The Unabomber, a local ‘celebrity’ depicted in more than one float, had his trial held in Helena. Ted Kaczynski, a former mathematician who became a recluse and mailed bombs to people, was found living in a cabin nearby. He was sentenced to life in prison and recently committed suicide. The courthouse where he was convicted is within sight of the parade.
Forest fighting is a yearly occurrence and distances are big in Montana, so there is a need for brave, strong people to keep them to a minimum.They were well depicted in the parade. Montana has an abundance of trees and thereby forests and thereby forest fires.
A goodly number of floats were dedicated to typical high schools clubs and themes- wrestling and boxing clubs, football, 4H clubs, farming, ranching, skiing and general mayhem. One of the best was a female boxing float.
The reason for the high school floats is that back in the day a lot of students would skip the last day of school because it was largely ceremonial. The senior and juniors would have a massive fight that ended in many injuries and would take the flagpole down in rebellion. When that action evolved to taking the other flagpole off the steep roof of one of the tall school buildings the situation got too dangerous. To put an end to it the Principal put out an offer that if the students would build and ride on the floats for the yearly parade then, when the parade was over, they would be allowed to leave and enjoy their freedom. It seemed to work. The kids enthusiastically responded. Now it has become a yearly tradition.
And they get a nice suntan and a joyous audience in response!