Foresters' Ball
The Lumberjack Dance
On February 18, 1916, the inaugural Lumberjack Dance was held at the University of Montana.[1] Participants in the ranger school organized the dance for students in the School of Forestry. The rangers began planning for the top-secret event in the fall of 1915. In an interview with a Kaimin reporter on November 18, 1915, dance organizers were asked about the plan for the evening’s entertainment. “The committeemen shifted their chews and replied, ‘the features of the entertainment will be unusual and will be staged by forestry talent. We refuse to divulge more.”[2] Despite the cryptic reply, or maybe because of it, students were eager to attend the novel event and more than three hundred purchased tickets.
The dance was held in the original campus gym. Guest were required to wear “woods and outing costumes”; those who showed up in a suit or tie were turned away.[3] The gym was decorated with tree boughs and the bathroom doors were disguised as ranger cabins. A lumberjack’s dinner, prepared by the wives of the ranger school men, was served in “true camp fashion” to all the guests.[4] At one point, a hold up was staged and $1 was taken from each man at the dance. At the close of the evening a bonfire was lit in front of the gym.
The second Lumberjack Dance was held on February 19, 1917, to coincide with the university’s Charter Day.[5] In a reversal of roles, students in the Forestry Club organized the dance in honor of the ranger school participants. The week before the dance the first Longhorn-Shorthorn indoor meet was held. The Longhorn-Shorthorn meet was a competition between students enrolled in the School of Forestry and participants in the ranger school.[6] The meet included ax throwing, sawing, pole climbing and numerous other competitions in forestry skills. When the ranger school closed in 1927, the School of Forestry students challenged their classmates in other disciplines to compete. The event grew to be called Boondockers Day and was held annually on campus the week before the Foresters’ Ball.[7]
At the third annual dance on February 21, 1918, each guest was asked to sit out a song and write a letter to a University of Montana student serving overseas.[8] A program from the dance was included with each letter mailed. The following year the program for the dance reserved certain dances specifically for sailors, soldiers or members of the ROTC.[9] In 1921, the dance was held off-campus for the first and only time at the Union Hall in downtown Missoula.[10] In the early years, the event was referred to as either the Lumberjacks Dance or the Foresters Dance but by the mid 1920s, it was known by its current name, the Foresters’ Ball.
By the late 1920s the Foresters’ Ball had become an annual campus tradition. It was the one night of the year when women living in residence halls on campus and in sororities were allowed to stay out past curfew.[11] In 1926, the ball organizing committee formally invited the legendry lumberman Paul Bunyan and his blue ox Babe to the ball.[12] The tradition of inviting Bunyan and Babe continued into the 1990s. The 1926 decorating committee installed a “Rangers’ Dream of Paradise” in one of the wresting rooms at the back of the gym. Paradise included a miniature waterfall and pond and a glowing full moon.[13] Four hundred people attended the 1926 ball.[14] As the ball grew in size so did the profits from it. The money raised was put back into a scholarship fund to help students in the School of Forestry.[15]
The job of organizing the ball became more complicated as the event grew. By the late 1930s, the Forestry Club decided to have a separate ball committee chair, called the Chief Push, oversee the entire event. The Chief Push was responsible for supervising all the tree cutting and hauling, decorating the gym and organizing the volunteers.[16]
In 1932, the Anaconda Company Greenough Lumber Camp donated a Michigan wheels, or highwheels, to the School of Forestry.[17] A highwheels was used to drag cut trees through the forest. The week before the ball the highwheels was placed in the center of the oval to provide publicity for the ball and help sell tickets. Over the years, much of the original wooden structure has been replaced, today only the iron is original.[18]
The Foresters’ Ball was not held from 1942-1945 due to World War II.[19] In 1947, the ball was expanded to two nights to accommodate the growing crowds.[20] In 1951, a beard-growing contest was added to help promote ticket sales; first prize was an electric razor.[21] Starting in the late 1950s the ball was held in the fall versus the traditional spring date. The fall start date did not allow enough time to hold the popular beard-growing contest so it was cancelled. Eventually the event returned to being held in the spring semester and beard-growing contest resumed.
At the first Lumberjacks Ball in 1916, tickets were $1 per couple and included full meal. In 2012, tickets to the ball were $20 a person or $30 for a couple, no meal provided. The 2011 ball raised over $20,000 for scholarships in the School of Forestry.[22] The 95th annual Foresters’ Ball was held in 2012 at the Adam’s Center. The larger venue allowed more people than ever to attend the event. Numerous serious issues with alcohol arose at the 2012 ball prompting the potential cancelation of the almost 100 year old event.[23] In cooperation with the university administration, the Forestry Club reorganized the event for 2013 to be smaller, family friendly and more educational.[24]
