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This is a lightly edited and condensed version of Eddie Coyle's July Fourth story from 1964 provided by the Seeley Lake Historical Society and Visitors Center.

By Eddie Coyle

I was promoting one of our bigger celebrations for that year, and started preparing for it back in May.

The plans included a water carnival, slalom races, ski jumps, a Miss Seeley Lake bathing beauty contest, a Boat and Motor raffle and three nights of dancing with live music.

Two local carpenters with helpers built a water ski jump. It was huge, 12 feet wide and 16 feet long. They floated it out on the lake and anchored it. The jump off end was about seven feet high. I thought it was a little high for amateurs, but all the skiers thought it was great. The Pyramid Mill donated the lumber.

The first step was in making a deal for a good classy boat and an outboard motor to raffle off. I knew the gulf boat dealer in Missoula, so I went in to talk to him and see what I could do. He showed me a real nice boat and trailer combination, with a 90 horsepower Mercury Motor, listed for $3,200. After some talking and I agreeing to give him advertising on our posters, he let me have the whole outfit for $2,700 and let me pay for it after the Fourth.

Every summer there's quite a few water skiers that come over from Great Falls. I knew they held a lot of ski events on the Missouri river during the summer. I talked to them about doing something with me on Seeley Lake over the Fourth of July. They said they would be glad to help. They intended to be in the Seeley Lake area that weekend anyway.

My next step was to figure out how to run the Miss Seeley Lake contest. I began getting a lot of advice from my California friends, especially from Tom Bird and Red Guyer. They lived in Laguna Beach where they said a lot of that goes on all summer long. Even so, I had my own ideas on how to make it attractive for the girls.

I brought the boat and motor up to Seeley Lake and put it on display in our parking lot with a big banner, telling of our Fourth of July program. Then I had posters printed up for the celebration. In the meantime I had gone into Missoula and contacted some of the businesses and wholesalers to help sponsor our program, and to donate prizes or cash for the pageant and water events, with the promise to have their names on the posters. I couldn't believe the support I got from that city. All kinds of clothing, cash, candy and even credit slips that they could use within a limit. That's something that would never happen today. I listed all the prizes on the posters.

I was surprised at the number of girls that wanted to enter the pageant. Besides our local girls there were girls from other towns staying at some of the summer homes who all wanted some of the action. We even received letters from other girls asking for information on entering the contest. We ended up settling for 15 girls competing in the contest. We had cash prizes for the four top places. We also used some of the prizes to give to the girls who sold the most tickets.

I had 6,000 tickets made up for the boat. Each girl was given a block of ten tickets at a time to sell. I knew we couldn't sell very many tickets just around Seeley. I had an Olds station wagon at that time, so I decided to take the boat and five girls and travel to different towns around the western part of the state. I went a couple times a week taking a different group of girls each time. This way I gave them all a chance to sell tickets.

Our celebration ended up an all around success. The girls ended up selling $5,300 in tickets. After deducting my traveling expenses, I cleared about $1,400 on the boat.

I knew people could watch the water carnival from any point around the lake, but I also knew they wouldn't watch a bathing beauty contest from very far off. I went to the county grading crew and borrowed a long stretch of their snow fence. We put it up all along A Street, the back road between the town and the lake, leaving an opening at the end of the street going down to the lake. We had an admission charge of $1.00 per person to get a closer view of the lake events and the bathing beauty contest. This took in another $1,100. We had a long elevated platform built along the edge of the lake for the beauty pageant. Even then not everyone paid, some jumped over the fence.

Nannie Clark won the contest. Her folks had a summer home on Placid Lake, and lived in Missoula. A Great Falls girl won second place and a Helena girl won third. I can't recall the fourth place girl, but I think she was from Hamilton.

It was a very successful weekend. Never been anything like it since.