The Blaine County Journal News-Opinion - We've Got The County Covered

Jamieson Motors held their 80th anniversary Celebration on Friday, June 24, celebrating quite an achievement for the oldest family-owned car dealership in the state of Montana. The weather was perfect, and a huge crowd showed up to take part in the festivities. Focusing on the fact that they are the oldest and 80 years is a long time they decided that something more was needed than just a customer appreciation day. Tess Langford stated, "We wanted to make it an all-inclusive Hi-line appreciation!"

They certainly accomplished their goal as they served more than 300 meals to a large lunch crown and another 150 to the appreciative dinner gathering, fourth generation owners Matt and Tess Langford recently took over the reins of the family business from third generation owners Fred 'Tuzz' Langford and Jay Jamieson.

One of the attractions added to the celebration was a car show that featured Mopars through the decades and the participation was exceptional, "Matt's idea to add a car show to the event was really the showstopper," stated Tess. "We had around 40 Mopars from across the state. Matt's sister and brother-in-law even brought their TRX from Idaho."

The location of Jamieson Motors, right along highway 2 sure attracted unassuming visitors just passing by, "People stopped on their way through town because they saw the cars. One couple was coming from Glasgow and headed back to Arizona. They have a '42 Plymouth at home and they wanted to check out all the old cars. They visited, had a burger and a pop and headed on their way. That couple really summed up the event for me," commented Tess. "They kept saying how amazing our community was. How awesome that all of these people took a Friday afternoon to come celebrate with us. They were so right. That is exactly what we wanted this event to be about, celebrating a community that has supported our business for 80 years."

80 years is a long time for any business and through the years pieces of history can get lost or muddled, maybe even forgotten about to some degree, but a celebration such as this brings the idea of researching to the forefront, "When we started investigating the history of the dealership a little bit, one thing that stood out to us was that we have families that we have been doing business with for four and five generations. People brought pictures of cars their grandparents had bought or pictures of family members who worked at the dealership. We even had someone send us a picture of an old level from the 50's that had 'Jamieson Motors - Always on the level' and our phone number 84 stamped on it. Those were really neat things to see," said Tess.

Being such a well-established and appreciated local business when the idea of an 80th anniversary celebration was suggested there wasn't a shortage of folks wanting to be a part of the celebration, "We had such an amazing turnout, Max Hofeldt and Hofeldt Premium Meats, supplied and cooked all the burgers and hot dogs along with his sidekick Chet Fouts. Eryn Nissen made an outstanding replica of our building out of cake. Willie Madril from 406 Custom Auto and Sound closed shop for the day and brought his gear down to play music and Mari Anne Skoyen who took some amazing photos throughout the entire day," added Tess.

There were some pretty nice prizes given away during the celebration and three lucky winners walked away with some pretty cool stuff. Rita Surber won the Blackstone Grill and BBQ package. Keri Sullivan was the winner of the Yeti Cooler package and Wes Bevis took home the Wine basket.

When all was said and done the celebration could only be considered a huge success that involved a tremendous commitment from many people and a great community to take part in, "It truly took the entire community to make this event happen. We are so grateful for the opportunity to serve the hi-line for the last 80 years," concluded Tess.