Missoula history

In December 1923, Waldemar Kaempffert, a “noted technical expert,” described the transition from the “the first timid experiments” with radio signals to the birth of the “broadcasting business.” That business created a whole new language and job descriptions. There were terms like “Broadcast Studio,” “Power Room” and “Master Clock,” and job titles like “Director of Broadcasting,” “Power Man” and “Announcer.”

Achoo! Achoo! Don’t stand too close to me. I have the curse, the scourge of human existence – the common cold! Since no contemporary elixir is helping, perhaps I should look to the past. One hundred years ago, panaceas abounded.

As 1909 dawned in Missoula, a refurbished theater called The Lyric claimed to be “one of the most modern moving picture houses in the West, with seating capacity of approximately 200 (and) first class in every respect.”

The Bureau of Land Management needs to increase fees at Garnet Ghost Town or some services may be lost, the agency said this week.

Happy New Year! As we all hope 2024 will be a better year than 2023, we look back at similar hopes 100 years ago. The editor of The Madisonian newspaper (Virginia City) at the end of 1923 wrote: “The old year fades away and the God of time ushers in the infant of 1924. The years come, and they go, and are seen no more, but they leave a heritage that even time itself can not efface.”

Tales of Montana Christmases past show years of sadness and struggle, joy and celebration.

I see that P!NK will perform in Missoula at Washington-Grizzly Stadium in August, with Sheryl Crow among the warm-up acts. Ticket prices, according to various websites, range between $70 and $370. That prompted me to look back through old issues of the UM student newspaper, The Kaimin, for the various acts and ticket prices in Missoula 50 years ago: 1973. Wow! What a year!

OK, it’s time to play: “Name That Place,” a game show testing your knowledge of local landmarks – but offering absolutely no cash, no prizes, no trips to exotic places, not a thing – except perhaps bragging rights. Here we go!

“There are, I think, undeniably, new winds sweeping across America. They are indeed gusty and changeable, but they are new - and they will alter what happens in Montana ... (either for) better or worse, (depending) on Montanans and how they, or you, read those winds.” The quote is from one of my favorite historians, K. Ross Toole, a Montana rancher who accepted the Hammond Professorship at the University of Montana in 1965 – a post he held until his death in 1981.

A single gun shot dropped the bear, but only momentarily. It quickly rose and charged the hunter. Astonishingly, the hunter dropped his gun and “rushed upon the bear with nothing for protection except a red sash which held up his trousers.”