Making multiple use of the paved parking area, the designers of the park decided it would be a good idea to add basketball hoops. As a result, there are five hoops and backboards in a line at the edge of the pavement. All are relatively new and in quite good condition.
The centerpiece of the park is the group of baseball diamonds. With four relatively new looking diamonds, bleachers, a concession building, restroom facilities and lots of parking, this park sees a lot of balls and strikes through the summer. Among the diamonds is a spacious picnic area and a kiddies' playground. Not just a baseball facility, the park also contains a rodeo arena and grandstand to the west of the diamonds and five lighted basketball half courts in the parking lot. To the east are two half sized and one full sized soccer field. The concession building, the Carl "Tubby" Lundstrom Memorial Building is in the centre of the four baseball diamonds. There's even more - a covered band stand and dance area, a 1.4 mile paved walking/bike path and a Frisbee Golf Course.
Given the facilities available here, the city of Libby holds its annual
Libby Logger Days at the park.
Logger Days is an education based series of summer days where the local community showcases its forest stewardship heritage. Started over 60 years ago, it long been used to educate the local population about forest management, forest management machinery and techniques and forest management cultural norms. The 58th Annual Libby Logger Days was held June 23rd to 26th, 2016.
J. Neils Memorial Park is also host to Libby's other major summer event, the
Kootenai River Rodeo, held annually near the end of July.
J. Neils Memorial Park was named in honor of entrepreneur and lumber king Julius Neils, born in Pomerania, Germany. Neils came to Montana in the early twentieth century, buying the Dawson Lumber Company, with mills in Libby, in 1911, as well as about ten thousand acres of timberlands in surrounding areas. Operations continued at Libby until the closing of the Libby Mill in 2002.