Montana history

The other day, I found myself reviewing old newspaper clippings in my files, when I came across the following item: “Ferocious Wampus Almost Visits Missoula.”

Hello, history fans! As I mentioned last week, I’ve taken some time off recently to recover from a major surgery. I’ll be back at the old keyboard next week. But for now, I’m sharing some of my favorite stories from the past 10 years.

Jim Harmon writes, "Hello, history fans! I’ve taken some time off recently to recover from a major surgery. I won’t bore you with any details."

One hundred years later, while much has changed, there is still, all across our country, a “strong personal prejudice and dissatisfaction with social and political matters.” Here’s hoping we can learn from the past. Let’s resolve to make 2026 a year of cooperation and splendid community spirit. Happy New Year!

Travel with us, back in time, to the early spring of 1925, when a sordid love triangle in the small community of Plains, Montana generated headlines across the country.

Mrs. Clyde Long, age 36, had been a Plains resident for about a decade. News reports indicated she’d operated the Windsor hotel for a time, and lived down by the river. She had known the younger man, 22-year-old George Gunther, for a number of years, when he had roomed at the Windsor hotel.

“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.

Say what? I think I’ll award the Nobel Prize for Confusing Remarks to H.C. Hollenbeck of Helena for his classic case of creating more questions than answers.

Today, I’m wrapping up a two-part series on K. Ross Toole. If you didn’t read last week’s column, it might be helpful to review it before enjoying part two, today. Ross Toole was deeply concerned about corporate greed vs. “the will of the people to protect the land they love.”

I see the Missoula City Council has approved selling the so-called “Riverfront Triangle” property to the development group, Averill Hospitality. It would be nice to finally see something happen at the old Fox Theater site - vacant since the 1980s.