Despite thunderstorms and heavy rains its first two days, Chadron’s 38th annual Fur Trade Days celebration is being proclaimed another success. Fur Trade Days coordinator Barb McDaniel says crowds were great and everyone seemed to have a good time.

McDaniel gives much of the credit for the renewed excitement and crowds to several new events.

Organizers of the Trading Stories Native American Film Festival, held at the Public Library, couldn’t be more pleased with the event. Spokesman Marguerite Vey-Miller says all seats were filled for the films on Friday night and about 2/3rds fill on Saturday and Sunday.

The festival offered documentaries and feature films shot in and generally set in this area. Vey-Miller says that at the least, they got people talking with a response that was more than enough to warrant looking at doing it again next year.

Vey-Miller says the goal was to bring the Native American element back into Chadron’s Fur Trade Days celebration, which in the past had different activities celebrating Indian culture including dance and drum groups.

The library’s other Fur Trade Days activity, the ghost tour of the library and other downtown locations led by a professional ghost hunter, drew even more people than the film festival with over 60 taking part in the first tour on Thursday and another two dozen or more yesterday.