Editing Montgomery, Minnesota (section)

==Arts and culture==
[[Image:Downtown-monty-kdays.jpg|thumb|Downtown Montgomery during the 74th Annual Kolacky Days Festival]]

Montgomery celebrates its Czechoslovakian heritage annually at the end of July with one of Minnesota's oldest festivals, [[Kolacky]] Days. The festival dates back to 1929, when an estimated 6,000 people visited Montgomery for the first Kolacky Day celebration, held on October 1.

"The Kolacky Day spirit reigned supreme from early Tuesday morning until a comparatively late hour Wednesday morning. More than 1,600 of the celebrated delicacies were devoured," according to a ''Montgomery Messenger'' account from the following week.

Events at the first celebration included a [[trap shooting]] tournament, a [[parade]], sports and races, and a football game between Montgomery and Le Sueur Center (now [[Le Center, MN|Le Center]]).

In 1931 Miss Leatta Ehmke (later Leatta Trnka) was crowned the first Kolacky Queen by Mayor Henry Westerman. For the 1934 celebration, a novelty button, sold by the Kolacky girls, was devised and is still in use today. Following the [[attack on Pearl Harbor]] on December 7, 1941, Kolacky Day retreated to the background until the Montgomery Community Club revived the celebration in 1948. Kolacky Day officially became a summer festival in 1966 when the traditional date, the last Sunday in September, was dropped in favor of the first weekend in August. The earlier date and warmer weather brought huge crowds to the festival. In 1975, Kolacky Day became Kolacky Days and the event was held for the first time at the end of July. It is now celebrated on the fourth full weekend of that month.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.montgomery.govoffice.com/ |title=City of Montgomery -- VITÁME VÁS! |website=www.montgomery.govoffice.com |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060706231440/http://www.montgomery.govoffice.com/ |archive-date=2006-07-06}}</ref> The shift was made at the urging of the Green Giant vegetable canning company, to avoid conflict with the busy corn-processing season.

Other annual events include the Torchlight Parade & Fireworks, the Masopust Festival also known as "The Czech Mardi Gras" and the Miss Czech-Slovak MN Pageant.