The Blackfoot Valley's News Source Since 1980
The Blackfoot Valley's News Source Since 1980
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In November, the Lincoln Branch Library will be focusing on two main programs, with some additional programming for children. Every Friday at 11 a.m., the library is hosting an online story time. Anyone who is interested can call or email Kate at the Library to get the link to join in for songs and stories. They will also have a new take and make craft available every week for families to pick up. In addition, they are still offering Library Packs. Patrons can choose between a story time pack with picture books, a genre pack...
The Christmas season in the Upper Blackfoot Valley is likely to look a bit less festive this year, as COVID-19 precautions take their toll on events. Among the casualties this year are Ovando’s Old West Christmas Fest and Lincoln’s annual Christmas Bazaar. Leigh Ann Valiton, one of the organizers of the Old West Christmas Fest, said social distancing requirements were among the primary reasons Ovando opted to call off their annual celebration. Valiton said the impact on the craft show, which is held every year in the Ova...
The Lincoln Prosperity Group - formerly the Upper Blackfoot Working Group – hosted a Virtual Open House Oct. 19 to gather feedback on the Lincoln Prosperity Proposal from Helena-area residents. The event was the first in a series of virtual open houses planned over the next three months, to introduce Montanans outside the Upper Blackfoot to the collaborative plan for public land management in the Lincoln area. The open houses are part of the final push to refine the proposal w...
The storm last weekend that dropped about five inches of snow in Lincoln resulted in a handful of slide-offs and accidents along Highway 200 in the Upper Blackfoot. Lincoln Fire Rescue and the Lincoln Volunteer Ambulance started Saturday morning off with a 5 a.m. call concerning an accident about 16 miles west of Lincoln, between the Highway 141 intersection and Browns Lake, but both were called off before leaving Lincoln because other responders were already on scene. A...
A new book by Dr. Amy Dempsey, entitled Destination Art is set to showcase Blackfoot Pathways: Sculpture in the Wild as one of only about 200 worldwide art destinations. This is the second edition of the book Destination Art published by Thames & Hudson and is due out April 2021. It will be the first time BPSW has been featured in a book. Kevin O'Dwyer, artistic director and curator of BPSW, had a previous project called Sculpture in the Parklands included in the first...
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....
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...
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...
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...
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....
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...
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)...
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...
With progress being made toward reconstruction of the historic Matt King House, it seemed like a good time to take a look at what 'Goldpans and Singletrees," the history of the Lincoln area published by The Upper Blackfoot Valley Historical Society in 1994, has to say about the man . On the edge of some tall pines, one-half mile north of Highway 200 lies some of the richest farm land in the Lincoln valley, its fields irrigated by Spring, Keep Cool, Sucker, and Liverpool...
The Matt King House was moved last week to the property where it will be reassembled on the east end of Lincoln's Main Street. Work on a foundation for the building is expected to begin soon, and efforts are underway to find logs large enough to replace those that rotted over the last century. The Montana History Foundation awarded the Upper Blackfoot Valley Historical Society a grant of $10,000 earlier this year to effort to re-build the historic ranchouse. Funding for the...
The old Mike Horse Creek Road is closed while the last of the remediation work in the Upper Blackfoot Mining Complex is completed during the next two months, but it will remain a public county road for access to public land once work is done. The road remains intact from Highway 200 to Shaue Gulch, but the river crossing to the intersection with Meadow Creek Road was removed as part of the clean up. Four-wheel drive vehicles should be able to cross the river using a hardened...
The 2020 Voter Survey on Public lands, a bi-annual University of Montana survey of opinions and attitudes toward the importance of public lands, included a question about the Lincoln Prosperity Proposal (formerly the Lincoln Valley Public Lands Proposal) that showed it had an unexpected level of statewide support. The survey shows nearly 72 percent of respondents generally support the Lincoln-area legislative proposal. Twenty-three percent were generally opposed to it. "We...
Construction of the Lincoln Skatepark began at Hooper Park last week after the project unexpectedly received $150,00 in funding. The funding – a $100,000 donation from Pearl Jam bassist Jeff Ament’s Montana Pool Service Foundation and a $50,000 donation from the Montana Skatepark Association – came as a welcome surprise to the Lincoln Skatepark Committee, a group of Lincoln school students who have been committed to the creation of the facility since 2018. “It came to my atte...
Under the Gov. Steve Bullock’s plan to reopen the state, churches began meeting again beginning Sunday, April 26 and many Upper Blackfoot Valley churches took the opportunity to return to in-person services. The Blackfoot Valley Bible Church held services Sunday. Pastor Art McCafferty said he called congregation members to let them know about required social distancing measures and to let them know that “there would be no greeting, no hand-shaking.” He added that members were instructed to sit only with their immediate famil...
As the COVID-19 pandemic has worn on, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has done an about face and is now recommending face coverings and masks for not only medical personnel and patients, but for workers dealing with the public and even average Americans, particularly in hard hit areas. As coronavirus patients began to mount last month, demand for masks soon exceeded supply, and it fell to people with a knack for sewing to fill the void. In the Upper Blackfoot...
As Christians throughout much of the nation look ahead to a homebound Easter Sunday, separated from their fellow worshippers by coronavirus-related restrictions, those in the Upper Blackfoot Valley will be able to stay connected to the churches through the internet. Local churches have been streaming their services online for the past few weeks as a series of restrictions, which began with the March 16 Lewis and Clark Public Health order to close bars and restaurants and...
There are no known cases of COVID - 19 in the Lincoln area yet, but as the number of cases increase throughout Montana, Lincoln's emergency medical services are changing how they respond to calls in preparation for the likelihood coronavirus will come to the Upper Blackfoot Valley. "A trauma call, anything, we have to treat them as if they have COVID-19," Lincoln Volunteer Ambulance President Aaron Birkholz said. With only about a half dozen EMTs available to respond to calls...
