The Blackfoot Valley's News Source Since 1980

Features


Sorted by date  Results 1 - 25 of 500

  • States sending the most people to Montana

    Stacker|Updated Mar 15, 2024

    Fewer Americans moved in 2022, according to the latest census data, but of those who did, 1 in 5 moved to a different state. Population growth has returned to pre-pandemic norms; Southern states continued to record influxes in population, while the Northeast saw the biggest drops, particularly in New York and Pennsylvania. These trends largely continued into last year, according to United Van Lines' annual movers study. States with the most inbound moves in 2023 were Vermont,...

  • The Promise of the Equinox: A Personal Account

    Rick Graetz, University of Montana Department of Geography|Updated Mar 15, 2024

    On about Dec. 21, the occasion of the winter solstice, the sun takes a brief respite on the tropic of Capricorn at 23 1/2 degrees south latitude. Then it begins its six-month odyssey north for a rendezvous with the tropic of Cancer at 23 1/2 degrees north latitude. Along the way, at a precise second in March, its rays are directly overhead on the equator, declaring the Spring Equinox. This year that instant occurs at 10:57 a.m. Montana time on Thursday, March 20. In Montana, t...

  • Small farms in the mountain states are disappearing

    Madilynne Clark, Mountain States Policy Center|Updated Mar 5, 2024

    Farm numbers across the United States are dwindling and the mountain states are no exception. Our country lost 7 percent of farms from 2017 to 2022, and all of the mountain states were above the national average. As a farmer in the region, I understand the stress of this profession, and if our country continues on its current trajectory our region's agricultural future looks bleak – more consolidation and less food security. From 2017 to 2022, Idaho, Montana, Washington,...

  • 50 songs you won't believe are turning 50 this year

    Stacker, Kaiya Shunyata|Updated Mar 5, 2024

    The 1970s was a tumultuous time, full of upheaval on many fronts, from the end of the Vietnam War to the dawn of personal computers. It makes sense that its music had a similar helter-skelter feel. The early '70s were a musical melting pot where rock, reggae, funk, and pop could coexist. Ingenuity was essential, and as artists were wary of the mainstream music industry, they began doing things unconventionally and bolder than ever. Punk and funk rose to popularity after the...

  • The history of daylight saving time-and why some are advocating for its end

    Stacker, Eliza Siegel|Updated Mar 5, 2024

    When asked about the origins of daylight saving time, you may imagine farmers in the distant past getting an extra hour of sun to tend to animals and crops. If you do, you're not alone. The myth that farmers are at the root of daylight saving time has proliferated a common understanding of the practice for a long time. But if the agriculture industry didn't advocate for the start of daylight saving time—and evidence suggests that farmers were, in fact, opposed to its...

  • UM Geologist Describes Where Gold Comes From

    Rick and Susie Graetz, UM Dept. of Geography|Updated Feb 26, 2024

    David Alt, author and a retired professor of geology at the University of Montana, explains why gold was found in Grasshopper Creek and the surrounding gulches. "At Bannack, as in many gold mining districts, much of the production came fast and early from bonanza deposits in stream placers. Early miners working the gravels in the streambed skimmed the cream off the district, leaving the hardest work and leanest pickings for those who came later. That happens because streams...

  • Anaconda - A Montana Gem

    Mark Spero and Rick Graetz, University of Montana|Updated Feb 21, 2024

    "In 1880, Nate Leavengood's meadow, where Anaconda now stands, was a lush and quiet place. As far as the eye could see in all directions there was nothing but the valley, the swelling foothills and mountain ramparts...four years later, the meadow was gone...there had been no gradual encroachment of civilization, no creeping in of small farms and little stores. There was no village. First there was nothing, and then all of a sudden there was the world's largest smelter and...

  • The Blackfeet Nation Has Long, Epic History

    Rick and Susie Graetz, U of M Dept. of Geography|Updated Feb 13, 2024

    At one time, they were feared Plains warriors. Historians believe the Blackfeet, forced out of their ancestral grounds in today's upper Great Lakes region by white advancement, were one of the first Native American tribes to head West. Though there are several stories on how they received their name, the most plausible is that their moccasins were blackened from the long journey across the prairie to reach what would become Montana. The Blackfeet band now living on the Blackfe...

  • Feb. 12: Lincoln's Birthday

    Library of Congress, Library of Congress|Updated Feb 13, 2024

    Abraham Lincoln, the sixteenth President of the United States, was born in a single-room log cabin on Sinking Spring Farm in LaRue County, Kentucky on February 12, 1809. He was the son of Thomas Lincoln, an illiterate pioneer farmer, and Nancy Hanks Lincoln, who died when Abraham was nine years old. It was Thomas Lincoln's second wife, Sarah Bush Johnston who, while illiterate herself, recognized Abraham's "uncommon natural talents" and encouraged his famous bookishness....

  • Yellowstone and Hellcat: a discussion of two Montana names

    Rick and Susie Graetz, University of Montana|Updated Feb 5, 2024

    Call it 670 miles or perhaps more precisely 674 miles, but either way, the Yellowstone River remains the nation's longest undammed waterway. It's a great river that gathers some of the finest mountain and prairie topography on the planet as it passes peaks reaching 12,000 feet in elevation, the largest high-mountain lake on the continent, dense evergreen forests, buttes, colorful badlands, deep canyons and sweet-smelling sage and juniper covered hills. A good portion of this...

  • That Time Montana Hit 70 Below ... And Maybe Colder

    Rick and Susie Graetz, University of Montana|Updated Jan 20, 2024

    Snow had been falling almost continuously for a week, and it was very cold. The temperature had only risen to minus 18 degrees. Finally, late in the day, the snow and wind stopped, skies cleared rapidly, and as the sun set the temperature plummeted. Early the next morning, on Jan. 20, 1954, the Montana and continental 48 states' record cold temperature of minus 70 degrees was observed at a mining camp near the Continental Divide a short distance from Rogers Pass near Helena....

  • This is Montana: Before YouTube

    Henriette Lowisch, Graduate Program Director - UM School of Journalism|Updated Jan 9, 2024

    Sometimes we need to be reminded of the fact that not everything is on YouTube. Rummaging through the shelves of the University of Montana's Mansfield Library to find materials for a book I'm writing, I recently came across a stack of five DVDs. The makeshift case covers, titled "Montana," lacked visual appeal, except for a pink warning sticker that indicated, "This DVD-R may not play on all machines." Intrigued, I hauled them home and inserted the first disc into my laptop. B...

  • Restoration of grave fences continues at Lincoln Gulch Cemetery

    Roger Dey, BVD|Updated Dec 11, 2023

    The grave of Minnie Neal, who died and was buried in 1869 in the old Lincoln Gulch Cemetery has a newly reconstructed fence back in place around her grave. Her grave was one of three from the pioneer mining era that had picket fences around them, and the only one of them identified by a headstone. Lewis and Clark County Heritage Preservation Officer Pam Attardo, joined by Mary Webb and Emory Padgett with Preserve Montana worked to rebuild the fences during a visit Oct. 16 and...

  • The Mystery of Minnie

    Roger Dey, BVD|Updated Nov 29, 2023

    As the only one of the three fenced graves with a name on it, Minnie Neal's final resting place has stood out from the others. With hand-cut diamond-shaped pickets and diamond-shaped finials on the corner posts, it was one of the two most ornate graves in the pioneer section of historic Lincoln Gulch Cemetery. Over the years, a local legend about the grave said that Minnie was a dance hall girl whose perfume could still be smelled at the cemetery on certain nights. Others...

  • Lodgepole Pine: Wildfires Create Signature Montana Forests

    Peter Kolb, UM College of Forestry and Conservation|Updated Nov 29, 2023

    Life gets busy for everyone. We all dream about getting away from it all for an hour, a day or perhaps even a week. My favorite is to go for a hike through one of Montana's lodgepole pine-covered mountainsides and stretch out under the trees on a bed of pinegrass and dwarf huckleberry, also known as grouse whortleberry, and listening to the wind gently whisper its secrets through the tree crowns and needles.   The lodgepole pine forests that cover several million acres of...

  • Montana Followed Meandering Path Toward Statehood (Part 2 OF 2)

    Updated Nov 15, 2023

    Arriving in Washington, D.C., Judge Sidney Edgerton consulted with President Lincoln and found him agreeable to the idea of a new territory in the Rockies. More important, Edgerton discovered that his friend and fellow Ohioan, Congressman James M. Ashley, had already begun work on a bill to form the new territory. Ashley, who chaired the House Committee on Territories, had the power to make his wishes felt. His political muscle and reports of the area's wealth of gold, which...

  • Montana Followed Meandering Path Toward Statehood (Part 1 OF 2)

    Updated Nov 6, 2023

    Each of the United States of America – except the original 13, Texas and California – was first organized as a territory before achieving admittance to the Union as a state. Originating with the Ordinances of 1785 and 1787, the territorial system provided the expanding U.S. with a method to govern frontier areas until they gained sufficient population and economic maturity to qualify for equality with the states. Territories represented a sort of compromise between...

  • What do Montana's independent ranchers need to survive? Customers.

    Susan Shain, High Country News|Updated Nov 6, 2023

    This story was originally published Oct. 31, 2023 at High Country News. In a squat 1,100-square-foot building on the outskirts of Helena lies a pile of enormous tongues. They are thick and leaden, stacked on a steel table like fish out of water. The bovines from which they came hulk nearby, cold carcasses hanging from cold hooks. Bearded men, their white coats covered in blood, rhythmically chop livers, punctuating the hum of industrial refrigeration. This small...

  • Avon – Heart of the Little Blackfoot Valley

    Kilynn Groen with Rick Graetz, University of Montana|Updated Oct 18, 2023

    Fifteen miles up the Little Blackfoot River from Garrison Jct. and straddling US Hwy 12 sits Avon. A picturesque place, the Little Blackfoot River skirts the south perimeter of town, Nevada Creek Valley runs its course on the north, the Garnet Range begins its rise on the northeast and the Crown of the Continent's southwest corner is just a few miles to the northeast. About 115 folks in town and 200 in the surrounding area call Avon home.  "Gold, Gold, Gold!" are the words...

  • Bear with Me!

    The Foundation for a Better Life|Updated Oct 2, 2023

    Young soldiers, far away from home and missing their families, discover a bear cub. That's how the story of Wojtek begins, back in 1942. He was alone in the mountains of Iran; nobody knows how he got there. When beleaguered Polish troops came upon Wojtek, they were immediately struck with emotions. They had been away from their loved ones for a long time. Their own families had been separated by war. They needed something to pick their spirits up. So, they nursed the baby... Full story

  • Photos: Northern Rockies Blacksmith Association Hammer-In

    Roger Dey|Updated Sep 19, 2023

    Members of the Northern Rockies Blacksmith Association came to Jason Valler's shop in Lincoln for their fall conference from Sept. 15-17. The conference was an oppeortuntiy for new blacksmiths to learn the craft and for members to practice and refine their skills....

  • Time for an update on Rusty Relics and the BVD

    Roger Dey, BVD|Updated Aug 29, 2023

    So, what's going on at Rusty Relics and the BVD? Well, it's past time to explain. To begin with - if it's not already clear – both our store and the BVD office is temporarily closed. For the next few weeks as we'll be work on a rebuilding project. Contrary to rumors, the new construction that began in June behind Rusty Relics isn't a huge hair salon, strip club or whatever else people are saying. It's actually just the back half of a new, energy efficient building. We...

  • Sheehy's political positions at forefront during 'America First' town hall

    Arren Kimbel-Sannit, Montana Free Press|Updated Aug 9, 2023

    Montana U.S. Senate candidate Tim Sheehy was in Gallatin Gateway Thursday for a town hall moderated by the America First Policy Institute, a right-wing think tank founded by former advisers to former President Donald Trump.  And while his team ushered Sheehy away after the event and declined to field questions from Montana Free Press - questions that would have addressed, for example, how he plans to ethically run for Senate while continuing to serve as CEO of an aerial...

  • Roger's Pass Fire

    Updated Aug 2, 2023

    The Roger's Pass Fire started on the afternoon of August 1 south of Highway 200 and the Continental Divide National Scenic Trail. Aviation resources, crews, and heavy equipment from Montana DNRC and the Forest Service is on scene with additional resources on order. A closure order is forthcoming. Thru hikers are advised to exit the Continental Divide Trail at Flesher Pass and reconnect at Roger's Pass. Current as of Wed, 08/02/2023 - 13:32 Incident Type Wildfire Cause under investigation Date of Origin Tue, 08/01/2023 -... Full story

  • Photos: Cowboy Mounted Shooting returns to Lincoln

    Updated Jul 27, 2023

    The Treasure State Cowboy Mounted Shooting Association returned to the Lincoln Rodeo Club for their Montana State Championship July 21-23....

Page Down

Rendered 03/19/2024 03:06