Dayton Daze

On Saturday, September 12, 2026, Dayton Daze was held again in Dayton, a Lake County town off Highway 93 on the shore of Flathead Lake. The proceeds go to the Chief Cliff Volunteer Fire Department and Quick Response Unit, which covers the Dayton, Proctor, Elmo and Lake Mary Ronan areas and the country west to the Flathead County line. The theme for 2026 was Red, White and Blue, in honor of America’s 250th birthday.

The 2026 program ran through the day. The Dayton School hosted an archery tournament, and a barbecue dinner began at 4 p.m. at the Chuckwagon Bar & Grill. Raffle tickets for a Henry Big Boy Brass .44 Magnum rifle were sold in the weeks before at the Polson Farmers Market and by any member of the fire department. The silent auction carried a Husqvarna Power Axe 351i donated by Chain Saw Sales of Kalispell and a set of corn hole boards painted for the department by Flathead Signs & Graphics. Two days before the event, Chief Brendeon Schoening was interviewed about it. The day also has craft and vendor booths, live music, a beer garden and kids’ games.

Two loops around town

The parade is the centerpiece. The 2010 parade, the 19th annual, opened with the Montana Honor Guard, followed by The Great Scots. About 50 entries came behind them: battery-powered toy cars, four-wheelers, retro fire trucks, vintage vehicles, buggies, cars with antlers and high-powered motorcycles. Three-year-old Kiera Heffner drove a battery-powered Ford F-150 with her puppy aboard. The Lake County Leader’s story names the dog Skeeter, and its photo caption names it Squeeker. Students, teachers and parents from the Dayton School rode a flatbed, and engines came from the Rollins and Chief Cliff volunteer departments, one Chief Cliff truck dressed in red, white and blue. Jim Terry handed a treat to 19-month-old Amaja West along the route. The parade made two loops around town while its announcers traded talk with the crowd.

“Everyone agreed, we’ve never had a parade that stretches around the whole block,” said Zoe Lilja, the department’s secretary. “We raised more than $3,000 in raffle tickets and had a good turnout all around.”

Six years later the trucks and tenders came from the Lake Mary Ronan, Rollins and Elmo rural stations, and the Polson Fire Department joined them. The mascots in 2016 were Twilight the pony and a pair of Dalmatian goats. The ALERT air ambulance was scheduled to appear but was called to an emergency. After flying a patient to Missoula, the crew stopped in Dayton so people could look over the helicopter and meet them.

Hose carts, pie and patriotic faces

Away from the parade route, the 2016 column in the Daily Inter Lake lists firefighter contests, tug-of-war, pie-eating competitions and a vintage hose cart race, along with live music, a flea market and free hot dogs. The Dayton Presbyterian Church ran a baked goods sale and bazaar, and Mission Mountain Winery poured free tastings. Children had their faces painted with patriotic images. In 2010 there were rummage sales and a moonbounce, where a boy named Hunter played with his nine-month-old sister, Heidi.

The themes change each year. The 2010 celebration fell on the ninth anniversary of the September 11 attacks. The 2016 event, held the weekend of the fifteenth, was themed “Firefighters — The Heart of Patriotism.” The 30th celebration, in 2021, called first responders superheroes and held a costume contest, with the parade at noon and free cookies beside the hot dogs. An undated Lively Times listing places the event at Dayton Park on the lake shore and describes a year themed “Fired Up for the 50s,” which marked the community’s 105th anniversary with a car show and a parade at 2 p.m.

A Rawson 26 on the lake

Sailboat owners, among them members of the Dayton Yacht Club, give free rides on Flathead Lake. In 2010 the wind blew strong, and Kurt and Kathy Hafferman took passengers out on their Rawson 26. It was released in 1966, and the Leader called it one of the first fiberglass boats built. Its first owner was Moose Miller, founder of Moose’s Saloon in Kalispell and an avid sailor. Kurt Hafferman had owned it for seven years at that point.

“We give rides at Dayton Daze every year,” he said. “Sailing is a whole way of life.”

Smoke from Freddy’s roof

The event began with a fire. In 1990 Fred Amestoy bought Freddy’s bar and planned a community appreciation day for September 8, with a pig roast and barbecue to mark the bar’s reopening. The night before, Dale Cooley was outside tending the pig roast when he saw smoke coming from the roof. He ran in and woke Amestoy and a friend, who were asleep inside. The bar was a total loss. Everyone got out, and no nearby property was damaged.

Amestoy rebuilt Freddy’s over the winter, and the next year the first official Dayton Community Appreciation Day was held. In 1992 Calvin Brown bought the bar and renamed it The Idle Spur. He kept the annual celebration, which came to be called Dayton Daze and grew into a fundraiser for the fire department. By 2016 Carol Marino of the Daily Inter Lake counted 25 years of it. That year the money raised bought a rescue vehicle, which the Ronan Fire Department sold to Chief Cliff at a steep discount. In 2016 The Idle Spur hosted the pig roast.

“The entire community gets involved in this fundraiser,” Lilja said that year.