About Town

It was, in 1923, declared to be “the biggest business field yet discovered” for women who wanted to open their own business. The business? Tea rooms. Marian Hale, in a nationally syndicated newspaper story, declared that tea rooms gave women the financial independence to pay mortgages and educate their children, “without loss of social position or subjecting themselves to … [Read more...] about Harmon’s Histories: During Prohibition, Missoula women gained financial independence at tea rooms

Missoulians wanted the best and freshest turkeys for their Thanksgiving Day fare in 1890. And not just any turkey would do. They wanted turkeys raised in the Bitterroot Valley ... "young, tender, juicy and fat.” The Missoula Weekly Gazette wrote, “We sympathize with the people who had to eat turkeys shipped in from the states. Our turkeys come to us driven in on foot from … [Read more...] about Harmon’s Histories: 1890 brought a bounteous Thanksgiving to Missoula

Rock and soul singer J.J. Grey and his band Mofro brought a distinct southern flair to Big Sky Country this weekend at the Wilma. Born and raised in Jacksonville, Florida, J.J Grey and Mofro’s music reflects the region in which the lead singer, Grey, and former band member and co-founder, Daryl Hance, grew up. Scrappy, rough and swampy, Grey's vocals carried the opening song … [Read more...] about J.J. Grey and Mofro bring ‘scrappy, rough and swampy’ soul to the Wilma

We all could use a bit of glee these days. While the heyday of the glee club is long gone, we can still enjoy the memories of those times. From the late 1800s to the mid-1900s, glee clubs were commonplace. Missoula had the Rocky Mountain Glee Club, the Missoula Glee Club, the University Glee Club, the YMCA Glee Club and the Orphea Glee Club, to name a few. During the … [Read more...] about Harmon’s Histories: Montana’s early glee clubs were ‘no fake amusement’

The game’s been around for more than a century – popular with all ages, from children to grandparents. If you’re a baby boomer, you most certainly played this game in the 1940s and 1950s – but were likely unaware of its past reputation as an unsavory game, one which had become associated with gambling, drinking and philandering. There were reports that it was literally … [Read more...] about Harmon’s Histories: ‘Immoral practice’ of croquet corrupted early day Montanans