Bitterroot Valley

“In no other section of Montana can there be found happier, healthier, more helpful or lovelier girls than in Ravalli County. Like all other products of the Bitter Root Valley, they are beyond compare!” The editor of the Ravalli Republican newspaper in Stevensville was on a roll, praising everything in sight, as the Western Montana Fruit Growers Association opened its first annual fall exhibit of fruits and vegetables.

By Jim Harmon Now and then I find myself a brick short of a wagon load, a few keys shy of a piano, in the way of fodder for this column. I have a lot of old newspaper clippings, but none really worthy of a full story. So today I share some of those short, disconnected clippings in hopes you’ll find them interesting, while I clear my attic of clutter. T...

For more than 100 years, the Rocky Mountain Labs have conducted lifesaving research into deadly diseases, including COVID-19, SARS-1, MERS, Lyme disease and Ebola. As I wrote in 2020, the Bio-safety Level 4 Labs have a colorful and controversial history, dating back more than a century to the initial reason for their existence: Black Measles, known today as Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever.

Missoula’s well-to-do certainly knew how to ring in the New Year a century ago.

With no immediate plans to run freight down the Bitterroot Branch line, Montana Rail Link and Missoula County still hope to remove several rail crossings until the day comes where they're needed again.