The centerpiece of the park is the group of baseball diamonds. 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.
Given the facilities available here, the city of Libby holds its annual
Kootenai River Rodeo, held every year near the end of July. A
PRCA event, the 2017 edition will be held July 28th – 29th. Essentially , it is this event which the nearly full sized bucking bull atop the entrance sign advertises. Everyone who sees a Brahma Bull in this pose will know that they have arrived at either a rodeo arena or a ranch which raises rodeo bulls. With his hind legs kicked high in the air, we might imagine that this bull has just finished unceremoniously discarding its rider and is celebrating the feat.
The bull was cast of bronze and mounted atop a cast concrete sign with the name of the park on the front. We have found no information on the bull, his age, or the sculptor responsible for this fine work.
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.