Uptown Butte St. Patrick’s Day Highlights
An Army Ranger friend of mine and his wife were out at the Helsinki in Butte for the big celebrations that always start the night before St. Patrick's Day and they sent me a note saying, "Butte is back! Fantastic to see all these people out."
While the turnout for this year's St. Patrick's Day Parade in Butte was certainly lighter than previous years I've attended, it was still great to be in Uptown Butte.
Here's a photo from inside the Helsinki on Wednesday night.
I started my morning with a LIVE radio from The Richest Hill Casino & Lounge thanks to our friends at KXTL who lined up our location. By 10 a.m. they already had a sizeable crowd gathering inside.
One of our listeners "Jared from Anaconda" even dropped by with his guitar and played us a song.
One of my next stops before the parade was to drop by the historic M&M Bar which was destroyed recently in a fire. They're looking to re-open in June next door to the original location, but they had a pop-up bar going for St. Patrick's Day.
I got a kick out of this. The bathroom inside the M&M was fully stocked with complimentary party favors, apparently.
I then checked out the Party Palace next door and spotted a bottle of Jameson. Earlier in the week we wondered if Butte bars were still completely out of Jameson.
Here's a view from inside the Palace. This couple had a nice front row seat for the parade. I got a kick out of their his and hers sweatshirts. For some reason my camera refused to focus for me but let's just say the lady on the left had the name...something that started with a T...Mcgee written on the back of it.
The photo below may just look like a white van in the parade, but this was pretty cool. The white van was from the Southwest Montana Veterans Home. Inside the van were two World War II veterans in wheelchairs who were joyfully waving to the crowd as they passed by.
Whitefish, Montana even had a presence at the parade helping to promote the Whitefish Winter Carnival.
It's an election year, so you know you're going to see the political campaigns with a presence in the parade. This year, the Western Congressional District was the big focus. On the Republican side, former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke had a big presence. He's in the photo below wearing a red, white, and blue "Union Proud" t-shirt.
And on the Democrat side you can see signs for Cora Neumann and Monica Tranel. You can't see any signs, but Tom Winter was also walking the parade.
And if you missed the St. Patrick's Day parade in Butte, you can always head to Billings on Saturday for the Pub Golf Classic.