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Elk corral at St. Mary in Glacier National Park in November, 1966. It was used to capture and examine elk for ongoing research.
70 years ago
Jan. 23, 1948
It was estimated that Glacier Park’s Lake McDonald froze over one winter in every eight winters. District rangers Floyd Henderson and Hugh Buchanan the week before watched as Bowman Lake in the North Fork froze over. Before the lake froze over, they went to the head of the lake by boat and saw elk in what was normally considered summer range.
60 years ago
Jan. 24, 1958
Glacier Park had a payroll of $572,000. Columbia Falls had over 1,000 jobs in either lumber mills or at the Anaconda Aluminum Co. plant. The West Glacier Lions Club reduced the cost of a tow rope at the skiing hill in West Glacier. Preschoolers and children up to grade six were just 10 cents a day. The tow rope operated on Saturdays and Sundays.
50 years ago
Jan. 26, 1968
Lincoln France was teaching a new automotive repair class for Columbia Falls High School students at his garage. France’s shop was located where the Station 8 Antiques shop is today. France was paid $30 a week to teach the class two nights a week. He opened a shop here in 1965.
40 years ago
Jan. 26, 1978
The federal government was studying the possibility of a”re-regulation” dam below the Hungry Horse Dam. The second dam would reduce the sudden surges of water from the main dam. It was never built. Fire destroyed the home of Babb artist Josef Dvorak. Dvorak was a native of Prague, Czechoslovakia and escaped the country on the roof of a passenger train to Austria when the Russians invaded in 1968. The fire started in the garage.
30 years ago
Jan. 27, 1988
The Columbia Falls speech team nabbed the state A championship — it was the second in the school’s history. The first was in 1978. The team was led by debaters Brandon Ryan and Ken Toole. They went undefeated in all the rounds. Timber harvest was the best in 10 years, with nearly 120 million board feet harvested from the Flathead National Forest.
20 years ago
Jan. 22, 1998
Polebridge Ranger Scott Emmerich had a visitor to his cabin — two mountain lions were stretched out on the porch of his living quarters. “Holy cow, this is kind of cool,” Emmerich thought. The cats took off when they saw him. Emmerich thought that Christmas lights he hung from the porch may have attracted the cats. He had seen lynx and lion tracks in the yard before.
10 years ago
Jan. 24, 2008
Developers submitted plans for the first phase of a large subdivision in Hungry Horse. Hungry Horse Villages would have been 64 condos, 37 single family homes and 31 townhouses. The housing market crashed and the subdivision was never built.