The Blackfoot Valley's News Source Since 1980
The Blackfoot Valley's News Source Since 1980
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Summer in Ovando is shaping up to be a quiet one this year. Business has been picking up for the small community in the last two weeks, after the state lifted the 14-day quarantine requirement for out-of-state visitors, but some mainstays of the community's summer will continue to feel the impact of restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Last week, after about a month-and-a-half of discussion that involved more than 20 members of the community, the town opted to call...
"Of all the flowers, me thinks a rose is best." -Emilia, Act 2 of The Two Noble Kinsmen, William Shakespeare The Woods' rose (Rosa woodsii) was named for Joseph Woods, a botanist who specialized in roses in the late 1700s to mid-1800s. Also known as the common wild rose or the mountain rose, this shrub can be found throughout the Blackfoot Valley, particularly in dry forest areas, the ponderosa belt, and in rocky areas with well-drained soil. The roses prefer south-facing...
In a surprisingly swift response to the request for a speed study on Highway 200 east of Lincoln, the Montana Department of Transportation is proposing to reduce speeds east of Lincoln, past Sculpture in the Wild and the Lincoln Ranger Station complex. Based on the traffic operation, they are recommending a modification of the speed zones on the east end of Lincoln to include a new nearly mile-long 60 mph speed zone that will extend east to the intersection with Airport Road....
I just wanted to reach out and say thank you. I had several of you in the community reach out via phone, text, and email to thank me for my original response to Liz Cain's letter to the editor in the Blackfoot Valley Dispatch. I appreciate your feedback on my response and want you to know that it means a lot to me that it resonated with so many of you. I additionally want to say thank you to Liz for her response last week. She was kind enough to send me an email with her...
In a memo to the Board of County Commissioners, Lewis and Clark County staff recommended they approve a contract with the Treasure State Endowment Program to provide $558,806 in funding to Lewis and Clark County for the Dalton Mountain Road Bridge Replacement. The project was accepted into the Montana Department of Transportation off-system bridge program earlier this year and is currently projected to cost $2.387 million under that program. The TSEP money will provide a...
Heading east out of Lincoln, the speed limit on Highway 200 jumps up to 70 mph, with a passing zone that stretches from the Blackfoot Valley Bible Church to the Lincoln Ranger Station, but with increased traffic and more people discovering Blackfoot Pathways: Sculpture in the Wild, concerns about safety have grown amid recent accidents and near misses. The issue had been a concern for the BPSW board since the sculpture park's inception, and a recent analysis of visitation to...
This is the beginning of a sometimes-series about plants in Upper Blackfoot Valley. Are you interested in a particular local plant? Contact the BVD to let us know! All plant information is provided in consultation with local botanist Klara Varga. The Mahonia repens, better known locally as Oregon grape, grows across the Upper Blackfoot Valley. A plant with coarse leathery leaves, this local shrub can easily be found on a walk through Blackfoot Pathways: Sculpture in the Wild...
A $38,000 Rural Development Block Grant awarded to Envision Lincoln by the USDA is helping to fund additional planning for an in-town trails plan, as well as two contractor positions to support Envision Lincoln’s goals. Karyn Good, Envision Lincoln’s lead community coordinator, learned of the award July 8. She and Erin Farris-Olsen, the rural development director for the Heart of the Rockies Initiative, worked to prepares and submit the grant application through HOR on behalf of Envision Lincoln to help the organization dev...
The Matt King Project that began in 2015 is making progress on the new property along Main Street. In the last month, the house logs, which had been stored behind the BVD & Rusty Relics shop, were moved over to the new property and a foundation for the house was poured. Next steps include taking stock by pulling apart the stacks of logs to determine which are still usable, and which will need to be replaced. The Lincoln Ranger District and Lonnie Cox have both donated new...
The Elkhorn COAD (Community Organizations Active in Disasters) recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Lewis & Clark County to define the working relationship of the two organizations. The Elkhorn COAD helps coordinate the local support and disaster relief efforts for disasters in Lewis and Clark, Jefferson, and Broadwater Counties through partner organizations including the Red Cross, the Civil Air Patrol, Montana Department of Health and Human Services, the...
The Lincoln Telephone Company has been offering their "Round Up" service to support local organizations since 1999. In that time, donations have totaled more than $36,000 said Aaron Daniel, Lincoln Telephone Company manager. Customers can select to "round up" their monthly bill to the next dollar to donate funding to Lincoln organizations. Lincoln Telephone recently started promoting the opportunity for customers to round up even more, allowing them to select the additional...
From Gold Pans and Singletrees Mail delivery provided one link with the outside world and within the Blackfoot Valley, and in 1921, citizens of Lincoln looked into another form of communication. At two o'clock on Sept. 27, 1921, the first meeting of the telephone company was called by Mr. Holgate. Paul Didriksen was elected secretary. The members discussed the materials they would need for the telephone service. They talked about what kind of posts, where they should be placed...
With the Pentagon's Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon Task Force reportedly preparing to release a report on UFO encounters, it seemed like a good time to take a look back at perhaps the earliest recorded UFO sighting In Montana, which happened just east of Lincoln near Cadotte Pass. Montana is no stranger to UFOs. Today, Montana is ranked number two on a list of states with the most UFO sightings. One of the most notorious - and difficult to explain - UFO films comes from Great...
This week, news clippings that included a story from the Helena Independant Record on a goodwill tour by Heena and Lincoln businessmen in July, 1960, and a 'Lincoln Up to Date' report n the Aug. 1, 1980 retirement of Thelma Hines form the Lincoln Telephone company....
Dear Roger and Erin, We just received our first copy of the BVD in its new format. Congratulations on the new look; the broadsheet takes it "uptown" so to speak. A community newspaper serving small towns is the nuts and bolts of the news media and should be welcomed and supported by all who can. Granted, most of us have access to the Internet and can receive newspapers online and other dubious news articles but its small community newspapers that keep readers informed on the...
The Upper Blackfoot Valley Community Council discussed a wide number topics at their July 21 meeting, including updates the Mike Horse road and restoration project to an Envision Lincoln grant award to COVID-19. Mike Horse Information provided to the UBVCC indicated construction work at the UBMC is nearing completion, and work on Mike Horse Road is finished, with a “heavily armored” ford in place across the Blackfoot River. According to the update read by UBVCC Chairman Zach Muse, the road “is still in place and trave...
Welcome to the new and improved Blackfoot Valley Dispatch. This issue marks our first as a broadsheet since the mid 1990's. It's a return to a format we hope our readers will appreciate. Last week, the BVD earned a somewhat dubious spot in the history of newspaper publishing in Montana when our final issue in the tabloid format became the last newspaper printed on the Goss Community press at River's Edge Printing in Great Fall. The Great Falls Tribune wound down its press oper...
As with several local events, the Lincoln Farmers Market has been cancelled for 2020 due to COVID-19, but plans are in the works to kick-off the event earlier and stronger in 2021. “While we really had great plans for the market this summer, it was becoming more unrealistic for us to meet the new requirements being imposed by the Lewis & Clark County Health Department,” said Jason and Tianna Valler, the new organizers for the market. “It also made it difficult for vende...
Most summers, Lincoln welcomes hikers from the Continental Divide Trail as well as cyclists from the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route, many of them participating in the Tour Divide Race. This year, COVID-related closures have affected both trails. According to the Continental Divide Trail Coalition, closures of the CDT in Montana include the sections running through the Blackfeet Nation and Glacier National Park. COVID-19 restrictions also closed the GDMBR's Canadian border...
Next week you will see a change in the Blackfoot Valley Dispatch. Seven years ago, we made the jump from a newsletter format on office paper to a tall tabloid on newsprint, returning the BVD to standard newspaper format. This issue of the BVD will be the last to be printed at River's Edge printing in Great Falls. Next week we'll transition to a new printer, with the Livingston Enterprise, as well as to a larger format, as a traditional, full-size broadsheet. While we had been planning to revamp the BVD's design, the...
Trenton Grantier (left) and Wyatt Jorgensen (operating mini-excavator) complete the fine grading at the site of the Matt King House's new foundation. The Upper Blackfoot Valley Historical Society chose to use a concrete slab rather than a footer to ensure a stable foundation for the historic house, which was built using very thick Ponderosa pine logs. The foundation is expected to be poured next week, with reconstruction of the building expected to take most of the...
Capt. Meriwether Lewis made the first written record of the Blackfoot River valley in July 1806 .On July 6 he and his half of the Corps of Discovery passed through the area that is now home to the towns of Ovando and Lincoln. July 6, 1806 Set out a little after sunrise passed the creek a little above our encampment. [probably Monture Creek] East 14 M. to the point at which the river leaves the extensive plains and enters the mountains these plains I called (the knob plains)...
A flag flown during a combat mission from Kuwait to Iraq especially for the Blackfoot Valley will be awarded for the first time to the first-place business float in the Lincoln Independence Day Parade on Saturday, July 4. Monte Howse, a member of the Montana Air National Guard in Great Falls, donated the flag to the Lincoln Valley Chamber of Commerce's annual Community Benefit last fall, said Laurie Richards, who was president of the LVCC at the time. Howse had previously...
C. V. Rubottom, one of the builders of the Lincoln community Hall, included a short look at Lincoln's Independence Day celebrations during the years right around 1920 in "The Bright Side of Ranch Life," a chapter of his unpublished Montana Memories.. The following appeared in the UBVHS Gold Pans and Singl trees as part of his description of building of the Hall in 1918. The Fourth of July was always an important holiday in our valley. The women folks usually planned on new...
Well, we made it through another winter and spring and really had no flooding issues; a nice break for all those that have been having issues the past few years. Now we head back into fire season. Weather From all the outlooks we have gotten, it appears that we can have an average season or we can have an above-average fire season. Hard to predict what Mother Nature is gonna throw at us. I'll get back to you in October and tell ya what kinda fire season we had in case you...
