Cow Belles Corral Campground (Musselshell County Fairgrounds)

Montana municipal park records

Likely — The record is good enough to put a pin on, but thin in places. Treat the details as a starting point, not gospel.

Source (FREE/DONATION -- the most authoritative source available, publishing the operator's POSTED site rules): ROUNDUP CHAMBER OF COMMERCE, roundupchamber.org/area-attractions (read 2026-07-28), verbatim -- 'Cow Belles Campground is used for picnicing and overnight camping.'; 'Donations for maintenance are accepted in the donation post on the west entrance. Donations are greatly appreciated.'; 'Camping longer than 14 days is prohibited unless arrangements have been made with Musselshell County.'; 'Camp Site Trailers, Tents and Vehicles cannot be left unattended for over 48 hours.'; 'Quiet hours are enforced between 10:00 p.m. and 7:00 a.m.'; 'Speed limit through Cow Belles is not to exceed 15 mph.'; 'Restrooms are only open seasonaly during warm weather. (Usually mid to late May through the 1st to mid September depending on weather patterns.)' CORROBORATION (independent, first-hand): The Dyrt review -- 'The campsite is free, but there is a sign asking for donations, which we did.' plus a second entry typing the site as 'Donation camping'; Campendium likewise free-with-donation-sign. CONFLICT DISCLOSED, NOT RESOLVED AWAY: GOOD SAM lists 'From $11 / night' with no citation and no rate detail. Ingested fee=0 confidence='med' with the conflict written into the field_note, per the previous MT fire's own Lesson 2 ('an aggregator saying FEE is not a price either' -- the Sanford Park call), the symmetric twin of NE Lesson 1 ('silence is not free'). NOT 'high' because roundupchamber.org is a chamber, not a .gov, and Musselshell County's own site (musselshellcounty.org) 403s every method tried. OPERATOR: MUSSELSHELL COUNTY -- established by the chamber's own '...arrangements have been made with Musselshell County' line; this is COUNTY land at the MUSSELSHELL COUNTY FAIRGROUNDS, NOT a city park. The previous fire's 'Roundup city park' framing pointed at the wrong owner, which is why the name would not resolve. COORDINATE -- THE HOLD THE 2026-07-20 FIRE COULD NOT SOLVE, SOLVED BY GEOCODING THE OPERATOR'S FACILITY INSTEAD OF THE SITE NAME: 'Cow Belles' is absent from OSM, does not geocode in Nominatim, and the chamber publishes no address -- three dead ends on the NAME. The fairgrounds, however, has an ordinary published address, 35 4-H Rd, Roundup MT 59072 (corroborated by MSU Extension's Musselshell-Golden Valley fairgrounds listing and by Waze), which geocodes first try. THREE fully independent listings then agree on the spot: Campendium 46.439964,-108.531549; The Dyrt 46.440278,-108.531688 (120 ft away); Good Sam 46.439104,-108.531712 (316 ft away) -- total spread under 430 ft, centroid 46.439782,-108.531650. BANKED OSM node/44725495 (46.4394832,-108.5315596), a SURVEYED node on 4-H Road (way/5767452, 8 nodes, full geometry via api.openstreetmap.org) -- the very street in the county's own address -- lying 111 ft from that centroid (175 ft Campendium / 144 ft Good Sam / 292 ft The Dyrt). Nominatim's geocode of the address itself lands 934 ft off, on the road centreline, and was NOT used. HONEST LIMIT: OSM still has no camp object here, so the pin is the 4-H Road access alongside the fairgrounds camping area, not a surveyed campsite; The Dyrt's written directions corroborate the approach ('From Jct of Main St & E Second, E 0.5 mi on E Second/at Fairground (L)'). NOT THE CITY PARK: the chamber lists Cow Belles and Roundup City Park as SEPARATE facilities and the banked pin is 0.74 mi from OSM's Roundup City Park polygon (way/333878405), outside the 0.5 mi dedup radius. Nearest existing MT lead of any source: 35.5 mi (checked against all 4,674). GUARDRAILS: camping is expressly ALLOWED (the chamber quotes the posted rules) and there is NO entry fee, day-use fee, permit or access pass on any source. land_manager='Musselshell County'; dispersed=0; camp_type NULL; water NULL -- listings report water available but NO official source states potable water, so it is NOT claimed. Restrooms seasonal per the chamber. Ingest 2026-07-28. --- NIGHTSHIFT REVIEW 2026-08-21 (fire 1220, leftover backlog) --- HOLDS UP. Re-read roundupchamber.org/area-attractions this fire; the operator's posted rules are still published verbatim as recorded: 'Cow Belles Campground is used for picnicing and overnight camping.', 'Donations for maintenance are accepted in the donation post on the west entrance. Donations are greatly appreciated.', 'Camping longer than 14 days is prohibited unless arrangements have been made with Musselshell County.', 'Quiet hours are enforced between 10:00 p.m. and 7:00 a.m.', and 'Restrooms are only open seasonaly during warm weather. (Usually mid to late May through the 1st to mid September depending on weather patterns.)' Camping is expressly allowed, the ask is a donation post and not a gate, and the Musselshell County ownership is still established by the chamber's own 'arrangements have been made with Musselshell County' line. OSM node 44725495 re-fetched live this fire and still present (v3) at this exact coordinate. The Good Sam 'From $11 / night' conflict recorded at ingest is unresolved and stays disclosed rather than argued away. Water still NOT claimed as potable -- no official source states it. APPROVED at medium: a chamber page, not a .gov.

US DOE Alternative Fuels Data Center station locator, snapshot 2026-09-16. Straight-line miles to the nearest public, open, unrestricted station; restricted and planned units are shown but never counted.

On the agency's books. The land manager inventoried this site, so its existence is not in question — current conditions are. Nobody from here has camped it recently.