While researching the Mothman Festival and the festivals that are around the United States, I came across some rather interesting festivals. One of them is the Testicle Festival, or Testy Fest as it’s known in Montana.
It was founded by Rod Lincoln, the original owner and founder of the Rock Creek Lodge. Lincoln was also the chef behind the testicle dishes, and claimed to use only USDA approved meat. It is unclear if he still cooked the dishes in the past few years.
The festival took place at Rock Creek Lodge just outside of Clinton, Montana. It ran for 35 years up until its cancellation this year due to accidents that had taken place in previous years, prompting the end of the festival.
It began in 1982, and started as a way to raise money for local charities related to testicular and prostate cancer. The people of the town needed something to sell, so why not sell what was most abundant in the area.
When bulls are castrated, you end up with a bunch of testicles and no use for them. They’re edible, and cowboys have been eating them for centuries, so why not?
There’s a variety of ways to fix them, from fried to testicle sushi, to grilled and everything in between. The festival ran for five days and culminated in an eating contest to see who could eat the most of the festival’s famous dish.
The festival featured a wet t-shirt contest, the ‘undie 500’ tricycle race, a hairy chest contest, and bull chip throwing as well as a rather crudely named bingo game.
Festival-goers had to be 21, and no children were allowed. The convenience of it being near the lodge was that if a festival attendee had too much of the fest’s signature beer (“Bull Snort Brew” as it was called), they could get a room to sleep it off.
There was also a gift shop located in the lodge where you could buy a variety of souvenirs from t-shirts to ‘Testy Fest Hot Sauce.’
Unfortunately, Testy Fest was cancelled in 2018 after the death of two pedestrians the previous year. One of the shuttle passengers, James Bayford, took the wheel of the shuttle and flipped it, killing two and injuring seven.
This wasn’t the first incident related to the festival but it was the final straw. In 2012, a car accident killed an eight-year-old boy. The truck that struck the SUV of a Seattle family was driven by a festival-goer who was intoxicated and had discovered keys in the ignition of a truck.
The festival had other issues too, seeing as it was a heavy alcohol consumption based event. Lots of videos would get uploaded to Facebook, which most people didn’t have an issue with, while others were upset over their drunken debauchery being posted for the world to see.
Attendance also took a sharp decline in the past few years. Usually, according to current lodge owner Matt Powers, the attendance was close to 10,000 thanks to social media becoming more prevalent.
Testicle Festival was rather popular in its heyday, and was what Montana was known for to a point. The Festival was so popular that the recent Ubisoft game “Far Cry 5,” featured a mission early on in the game called “Testy Festy.” Upon completion, the player would receive a t-shirt in game with the same saying on it.
The mission required the player to butcher several bulls to collect a certain number of the festival’s main dish ingredient, bull testicles.
Sadly, the Testy Fest is no more, but I’m sure the locals will still consume the famed dish for years to come. Testy Fest will be remembered by those who attended, and I’m sure, as was the motto, they “had a ball.”
Jeri Hensley
Graphic Designer