Missoula County

As the dry season deepens, Missoula County is ramping up its wildfire mitigation program in hopes of protecting more homes from catching fire.

Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal featured the creation Civilian Conservation Corps (the CCC) to give unemployed “single men between the ages of 18 and 25 to enlist in work programs to improve America’s public lands, forests, and parks.”

Missoula is known as the Garden City of Montana. How that came to be was explained in the Sunday edition of the Missoulian newspaper on May 30, 1909. “To its miles of residence streets is to be traced the origin of the title, which, after all, is the proudest that Missoula bears. Wide and clean are Missoula’s streets, a rule that holds good especially in its residence districts.”

The health of the Missoula's Valleys rivers has improved, but as the population grows and more people turn to summer recreation, the need to manage the resource also grows.

In 1911, Montana Governor Norris issued a proclamation, “the first of its kind ever issued by a Montana governor, designating next Sunday (May 14th) as Mothers’ Day.”

Root Electric Company at 127 East Cedar (now Broadway) was displaying the Grebe Synchophase radio receiver. The Dickinson Piano Company featured the Zenith Long Distance radio, capable of picking up broadcasts from “as far as 1,500 miles away.” Even the H. O. Bell auto dealership on South Higgins offered the Radiola, priced from “$35 to $425 with convenient terms, if desired.”

Ah, the ability to turn lowly metals into gold. It’s called alchemy, and my pocketbook could use a massive infusion of it, today. Too bad it was discredited, once and for all, in the 19th century.

About one hundred years ago (Sunday, April 26, 1925 to be exact) Arthur L. Stone, the famed newspaper man and founding father of UM’s journalism school, penned a love letter to a pine tree. “High on the hip of Mount Jumbo stands ‘Sentinel Pine.’ Remote from its kind, this yellow pine overlooks the Hell Gate and the Missoula valley with a view unobstructed.”

It’s Spring! It’s finally arrived! I have the fever! These are the days when one should feel as lighthearted as a Shakespearean quote: “The cuckoo-buds of yellow hue do paint the meadows with delight.”

Nick Caras has recently discovered “some old wallpapers in the Hammond Arcade, several of which are scenes of Chinese lanterns; and one of a traditional English ‘stag hunt.’ ” He wrote to the Missoula Current’s Martin Kidston, “I thought (I’d) ask if you had any hunch as far as date or perhaps you have some resources on the Chinese history in Missoula.” Martin passed the question to me, and I’m glad he did.