On the first Tuesday of every month, the club room at West Fargo's VFW fills with the sound of a live band playing old-time music — and the price of admission is five dollars. On Tuesday, October 6, 2026, the West Fargo Old Time Dance returns to VFW Post 7564 at 444 Sheyenne Street, running from 7 to 10 p.m. with music by Brian Breitbarth. Five dollars gets you in the door and covers a light lunch.
The event is one of the more quietly durable traditions in the Fargo-Moorhead area. According to Will Shirk, who has helped organize the monthly gathering, the West Fargo VFW has held an "old-time dance" on the first Tuesday of each month and invites the public to enjoy retro music and dancing. The formula has not changed much: a live musician, a dance floor, a modest cover charge, and food. It is the kind of evening that asks nothing of you except that you show up.
The music itself belongs to a specific regional tradition. "Old-time" in the Upper Midwest generally means the dance repertoire that rural and small-town bands carried through the middle of the twentieth century — waltzes, polkas, schottisches, two-steps, and foxtrots — the same tunes that once filled grange halls, Legion clubs, and VFW posts across the northern plains. The Folkways label's guide to playing for old-time dances lists the waltz, polka, schottische, two step, and foxtrot among the principal old time dance forms, and notes that dance musicians have to know how to choose appropriate tunes and maximize their danceability. That is the craft Breitbarth brings to the West Fargo post: not a concert set, but a working dance band's set, paced for couples circling the room.
The rotating cast of musicians is part of the tradition's texture. The VFW's monthly dance has featured different performers over the years — Breitbarth has played the January slot in past seasons, and other listings for the recurring event name musicians such as Tim Mosser and Leo Kiefer. The event has also appeared in local calendars under a slightly different name, "West Fargo Senior Dance," though the Fargo-Moorhead visitors' bureau and the VFW's own listings use "West Fargo Old Time Dance." Either way, it is the same first-Tuesday gathering.
The venue has its own history, and it is worth knowing before you walk in. The post is formally named Arthur W. Jones VFW Post 7564, after the first veteran from the West Fargo area killed in World War II. Jones was born January 18, 1922, and was killed in action on November 5, 1942, serving at Guadalcanal in the South Pacific. The post itself was first chartered on March 10, 1946, when ten veterans got together to form a VFW in what was then still a village. That first effort folded within months for lack of interest. A second attempt succeeded: on July 29, 1948, a new charter was issued with 26 members on it, and Earl Hanson was elected the first post commander.
Money was scarce in those early years. Meetings were held in a local barber shop, a bar, and the fire hall, and bingo games at Thanksgiving and Easter were the post's only source of income. In 1952 the post bought a corner lot at 4th Avenue and Sheyenne Street for $600, and the adjoining lot the following year for $500. Building bonds were sold, and in 1955 a building committee oversaw construction of the first post home — a 40-by-100-foot building that cost $25,000. The Auxiliary formed in January 1956 with 49 charter members, led by Florence Loberg. Then, at 3 a.m. on March 28, 1959, the building caught fire; the blaze gutted the kitchen and office and destroyed all the records. The post rebuilt, and in 1974 opened a new club that still serves as its home today.
That long institutional memory is part of why a five-dollar dance still makes sense here. The post has spent decades as a gathering place in a town that grew up around it, and the monthly dance is a continuation of that role — a low-stakes, all-ages-in-spirit evening where the point is the music and the company rather than the ticket price. There is no dress code implied, no reserved seating, and no expectation that you already know the steps. You can listen or you can dance; the listing says as much.
For anyone curious about the region's older musical life, or simply looking for a cheap Tuesday night out, the arithmetic is hard to beat: three hours of live old-time music, a light lunch, and a room full of people who have been doing this for years — all for the price of a couple of coffees. The dance runs 7 to 10 p.m. on Tuesday, October 6, 2026, at VFW Post 7564, 444 Sheyenne Street, West Fargo. Admission is $5 at the door.