Civic leader, former mayor, Elliott dies at 86

Roger Elliott, a former Columbia Falls mayor, civic leader and state senator, died Aug. 1. He was 86. Elliott was mayor from 1967 to 1971 and a Republican state senator from 1981-85, his son Roger F. Elliott said last week.

Elliott was a well-known certified public accountant in Columbia Falls and the valley, his son noted. He drew up the papers that made Winter Sports Inc., a publicly traded company that would eventually make the Big Mountain ski area what it is today.

He also brought a ski bus to Columbia Falls so youths could get rides to ski Big Mountain.

One of his major accomplishments as mayor was bringing a sewer system to Columbia Falls by securing federal grants that helped see the project to fruition. He also helped the city of Rexford near Libby with its sewer system after the town had to relocate because of the construction of the Libby Dam.

Elliott enjoyed the outdoors and travel. He would take trips through the Bob Marshall Wilderness and in 1976, he took his family on a bicentennial tour of civil war battlefields back East. But he didn’t rent a car, his son recalled. He bought a car from a guy, used it for six weeks and then sold it back to him.

He enjoyed bird hunting in Canada and had trained Brittany spaniels. When he retired, he bought a 42-foot trawler and lived out on the ocean near Seattle, traveling the coast to Alaska. He enjoyed the ocean and even before that, would haul his boat to the San Juan Islands every year so he could go salmon fishing.

Over the past couple of years, he was fighting a brain tumor, his son said, but until last fall, he was still playing tennis.

A memorial service is planned for September.