A column of Native American riders on horseback fills the unpaved main street of Polson, Montana in this panoramic photograph dated 1922 and signed in the lower left by photographer H. Schmutzmayer. The riders wear traditional regalia including fringed garments and feathered headdresses, and their horses carry decorated blankets and tack. The format is a wide panoramic print, consistent with a long postcard presentation, capturing the full breadth of the celebration along the town's commercial corridor.

Storefronts visible along both sides of the street include The Racket, Glacier Cafe, Great Western Land Co., Pool Hall, Model Cafe, and a tailor shop, with canvas awnings and bunting suggesting a festive atmosphere. A crowd of spectators lines the boardwalks, several women in white summer dresses, and an early automobile is parked at the right foreground with a man in a suit and hat standing beside it. A black dog trots across the dirt street in the middle distance.

Polson sits on the southern shore of Flathead Lake within the Flathead Indian Reservation in Lake County, Montana, and was home to the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes. The mounted riders in regalia are consistent with tribal participation in the town's Independence Day celebrations, a documented tradition of the era in reservation border towns throughout the Northern Rockies.

Verso bears the inscription in ink: "Property of W. D. Trow, Polson, Montana."

From the collection of James Lee Soffer