Columbia Falls: Adventure Lives Here; Community effort to rebrand the place

O’Brien Byrd and a host of Columbia Falls Community Foundation members unveiled a new Columbia Falls logo and slogan at the city council meeting Monday night.

The logo features Columbia Mountain, the Flathead River and a sun rising over the peaks with the slogan “Adventure Lives Here.”

The branding effort is just a small piece of a larger effort to revitalize Columbia Falls. The attractive logo came about through a focus group Byrd organized, which featured community members from a broad spectrum of ages and professions. They’ve been meeting for several months working on the logo, which was designed by Wheelie Creative, of Whitefish.

Byrd, who owns a liquor store in Columbia Falls and has been a driving force in community events, including a very successful weekly farmer’s market, said the logo was created to “help spread the word of Columbia Falls.”

The city, however, will not adopt the logo in any official capacity. In its late April meeting, council decided against it, noting that the city needs its own logo for security reasons — a commercial logo that’s sold on T-shirts and mugs could potentially identify anyone as a city employee, which could open the city to liability concerns.

Byrd was fine with that.

“We aren’t saying this is the official city logo,” he told council.

Mayor Don Barnhart was grateful for the effort.

“I’d like to thank you for your hard work,” he said.

The city has seen a marked resurgence of positive economic activity over the past couple of years, with more to come. By the end of the year Nucleus Avenue alone should have three new bakeries, a yoga business is going into the former Outside Media offices, a podiatrist is moving into a former doctor’s office that has been vacant for years and a bike shop is planned with one of the bakeries.

The new Cedar Creek Lodge is expected to open by mid-June and developer Mick Ruis also has plans for a mixed retail and residential development in the center block of the city as well.

A hot dog and ice cream restaurant is under construction on U.S. Highway 2 across from the lodge and Ruis also has plans for a restaurant at the lodge itself at some point. A brewery recently opened on the U.S. Highway 2 strip as well.

On the industrial side of things, SmartLam could expand to the industrial park off Railroad Street by year’s end if everything comes together.

After the Great Recession, which saw a host of properties in the city suffer foreclosure, things are definitely looking up in Columbia Falls.

Freedom Bank President Don Bennett, wearing a T-shirt with the new logo, credited Byrd with spearheading the logo effort.

“He pulled the pieces together,” Bennett said.

Freedom Bank is financing several of the new projects in town.

“Economic development is not an event,” Bennett noted. “It’s a process.”

Merchandise with the new logo, such as shirts and mugs, will be available at the farmer’s market on May 19. 

The logo is also downloadable at the Columbia Falls Community Foundation web site at http://columbiafallsfoundation.org. 

A small donation is asked for businesses who want to use the logo in promotional pieces and on merchandise.