Missoula

It was just a year ago this week that Hope Hospice Center first opened its doors in Missoula, and in that short time, the facility has transformed end-of-life care not just in western Montana, but for families across the country.

I find it impossible to fathom, but I am quickly approaching my 80th birthday! Strange how those sorts of things sneak up on you. I have loved the 10 years I've spent writing about the news of yesteryear for the Missoula Current.

The pool water was too cold, police confiscated bikes while kids watched the matinee, and the preacher advised to hold your tongue! Those were the headlines in Missoula back in the summer of 1926.

“No Booze for Bugs,” read the headline in newspapers across the country, including the local Daily Missoulian. Read the sad tale of Major League Baseball pitcher Bugs Raymond in this morning's edition of Harmon's Histories.

“Who is the most perfect physical specimen of young womanhood in Missoula or western Montana?" The question was posed 100 years ago by The Daily Missoulian newspaper, in launching its “sequel to Miss America.”

Well, I wouldn’t call them festive, and they ain’t creeping up my picnic pants – but I am disporting myself with “antics queer” these days. That’s right, we have a mini ant invasion. But why?

Back in 1908, Gideon International member Archie Bailey was a regular guest at the Superior Hotel, while working for a company which was assisting the railroad to expand. “He approached Edna Wilkinson, the hotel’s proprietor, to see if he could place a Bible there at the hotel desk clerk’s station. Edna countered with a bigger proposition: could Archie actually place a Bible in each of the guest rooms? Archie agreed.”

Mowing is still familiar to our youth today – but the scythe is no longer in our vocabulary. Until today, when Jim Harmon brings the scythe back just in time for summer!

Advertising from 100 years ago reveals a dapper, dry Missoula, prepping for summer's flies and hungry for ice cream. Enjoy!

More than $1.5 million in funding awarded for the next fiscal year will serve more than 755 individuals in need and preserve 206 affordable housing units through rehabilitation, housing officials said Wednesday.