History road show coming to Columbia Falls

Folks interested in local history will be in their element in mid June as the Montana Preservation Alliance brings its Montana Preservation Road Show to Columbia Falls.

The alliance is teaming up with the Flathead National Forest to host talks and road tours to historic sites in the Flathead Valley.

Tour participants can see barns and homesteads, tribal landscapes, industrial buildings, ranger stations, depots, hotels, and more. Along the way, veteran preservationists, local historians, tribal experts, archaeologists, teachers and professors all join in to provide a well-rounded portrait of the historic places that define the Flathead area and her people.

“By getting people out of the conference room and into the field to experience history first hand, we all gain a better appreciation and deeper understanding of the places in our past,” MPA Outreach Director Christine Brown said. “There are simply remarkable places hidden in the rural corners of Montana, and the road show aims to shed a light on the importance of these places – how they played a role in the past, how they’ve been preserved or need to be preserved, and how they continue to be an important factor in our community’s economic and cultural well-being.”

Participants don’t have to be an historian or professional preservationist to join this conference – just an enthusiastic traveler, listener, and lover of history. The hardest part of the road show is choosing from several concurrent tour and/or talk options during the four days.

“The Flathead has such a wealth of architecture, history, and cultural sites to learn about, we’ve really had a hard time narrowing down all the choices to fit into four days,” said Brown. “It will be a tough decision for a lot of folks to choose which all-day and half-day tours they want to take.”

The keynote address is at 7 p.m. June 14 at St. Richard’s Catholic Church on the Sperry Chalet, by Glacier Park superintendent Jeff Mow, Park historian Deirdre Shaw and Tom Beaudette of DCI Engineers.

The talk is free and open to the public, with a dessert reception afterwards.

A host of other talks will be at the Cedar Creek Lodge in Columbia Falls.

Registration is $225 for members or $250 for non-members and includes Belton Chalet reception on June 13; all-day tour, lunch, and evening presentation and dessert reception on June 14; and talks, lunch, half-day tour, and Conrad Mansion reception on June 15. Tours on June 13 and 16 are optional and cost $50 to $100. For those who can’t attend the full conference, tours on Wednesday, June 13 and Saturday, June 16 offer a one-day registration fee.

Find the full conference agenda and register at PreserveMontana.org/2018-Road-Show or call 406-457-2822.