In six decades, Creston Fire Chief Gary Mahugh has seen some strange items pass through the annual Creston Auction, but one in particular stands out: a live goose, painted red, white and blue.  

It was 1976, the auction’s early years, and a goose traditionally found its way into the lineup. For the nation’s bicentennial, someone had the bright idea to adorn the waterfowl in the colors of Old Glory. 

Per tradition, whoever placed the winning bid donated the goose right back to the auction, and bidding would start all over again until someone finally acquiesced and brought the bird home.  

In the ensuing years, the Creston Auction and Country Fair evolved into one of the largest live auction events in the Northwest. Over the course of a weekend, thousands of people descend on Creston in hopes of scoring a treasure. Silverware, lawn equipment, antiques, boats, cars —  if someone wants it, the Creston Auction has it.  

“A lot of times people hear, ‘Oh, it’s a volunteer fire department fundraiser,’ and the connotation that will give someone is that it’s just kind of a hokey little thing,” Mahugh said. “For people who haven’t been to the Creston Auction, they need to have the experience as we refer to it. It’s not just an auction. It’s an experience.” 

The annual event began as a fundraiser for the Creston Fire Department and is put on entirely by volunteers. Seemingly overnight, the Creston School athletic fields are filled with endless rows of secondhand goods. Come auction day, auctioneers load up into wagons that travel down the rows of goods as eager bidders trail behind them. As many as five auctions run simultaneously.  

The experience doesn’t exist in many other places these days, according to Mahugh. Live auctions, especially outdoor live auctions, are dying out, replaced by online versions. With a dwindling market for their skillset, professional auctioneers are now few and far between.  

In Creston, those professional auctioneers are vital. Over the two days of sales, the auction requires 10 to 15 auctioneers, and they’re increasingly hard to find.  

Mahugh said it’s very possible the Creston Auction will soon become a thing of the past, given how challenging it’s become to staff the event. While he is confident there will always be an April event to support the Creston Fire Department, the decline in auctioneers as well as volunteers may force the fundraiser to depart from its historical roots.  

But for this year, at least, the auction will still run as it has for the past 60 years. 

THE CRESTON Auction was born in 1966. Phil Buck, an auctioneer by trade, lived in the Creston Fire District and proposed a community auction to support the volunteer fire department. 

Initially, the auction was held in October at the end of harvest season, and Mahugh remembers a surplus of potatoes for sale. Community members doated all the items for sale, and 100-pound sacks of potatoes would sell for dollars per bag on the front steps of the Grange Hall.  

The operation was bare bones in the beginning. Firefighters and their families cooked up hot dogs and hamburgers, and the auction clerk worked out of the back of a pickup truck. 

“In all honesty, that very first sale probably made $500 or something,” said Mahugh. “It was not a lot of money.” 

Today, the auction nets $60,000 in one weekend. Over its lifetime, the auction has resulted in nearly $2 million for the volunteer fire department.  

All proceeds from the auction go toward the Creston Fire Department, which is an all-volunteer organization. First responders receive no compensation for their services, and more than 30 volunteers responded to more than 400 calls in 2025.  

Creston Fire and the Friends of Creston Fire are actively fundraising to replace Fire Station 251, which has been in use since the 1960s. The aging building is not designed for modern fire equipment and barely accommodates weekly training sessions. 

“From a financial standpoint, it's been really important to help us fund some of those things that just didn't have enough tax dollars to buy things. So that's been huge the last few years,” said Mahugh. “We are attempting to build that fire station with fundraised dollars, not tax dollars, and donated labor and in kind, provision of labor and efforts and goods and whatnot. 

“Most people are running bonds and levies to build those buildings. We're trying to do it on fundraise dollars.” 

While the primary goal of the auction is to raise money for the fire department, the social aspect of auction is just as valuable, if not more valuable, according to Mahugh. 

“We have a lot of people that talk about, ‘I only see certain folks once a year, and that's at the Creston Auction.’ That’s pretty neat, when I hear those people talk like that, that it’s so important to them to come out and socialize.” 

The 2026 Creston Auction and Country Fair runs from April 10-12. Items are consigned on Friday from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. General merchandise is auctioned off on Saturday beginning at 9 a.m. Bid tickets are $10 and go on sale when the grounds open at 7 a.m. The Auto, Marine, RV, and Equipment Sale is on Sunday at 10 a.m. with bid tickets on sale beginning at 9 a.m.  

A rummage sale is held in the school gymnasium throughout the weekend, and local food trucks and vendors sell refreshments.  

For more information about the Creston Auction, visit crestonfire.org. 

Reporter Elsa Ericksen can be reached at 406-758-4459 or [email protected]. If you value local journalism, pledge your support at dailyinterlake.com/support.

    The first Creston Auction was held in 1966 (courtesy Creston Fire Department)
  

    

    Auction goers socializing at the Creston Auction in the 1980s (Courtesy Creston Fire Department)
  

    Volunteers from the Creston Fire Department with a sample of auction items in the 1980s (Courtesy Creston Fire Department)
  

    The Creston Auction from above in the 1990s (Courtesy of Creston Fire Department)