From our Op-Ed in the Hungry Horse News     

Moments

On any given Thursday this summer, you could find yourself in the center of Uptown Columbia Falls, sitting on the grass, or at a picnic table under an umbrella, enjoying fine tunes, snacking on kettle corn, chatting with friends and strangers. Around you there would likely be several hundred others, doing similar things.

On another summer day, you might be resting on the curb in the hot hot sun, watching lifeguards from the City Pool fire water cannons from a festive float in a traditional parade. Around you would be thousands of people, locals and visitors, returnees and never-lefts, grandparents and grandkids, generations.

On an evening last spring, you very well could have been sitting in a room of more 300 people, listening intently as a man who had climbed mountains all over the world shared his story of tragedy on K2 in Nepal with a small town in Northwest Montana.

Nearly a year ago, you may have been one of 100 or more people, all trying to squeeze into the small, most often empty, chambers of the Columbia Falls City Council, as the visionary leaders of our community took a bold step and agreed to purchase 28 acres of gorgeous waterfront and create River’s Edge Park.

These are all moments of time for our town. They mean something, each on their own. But more importantly, as pieces of a larger mosaic, a quilt that represents who we are and who we are becoming. They are being added to 118 years of other moments that represent the history of Columbia Falls.

From adversity, Strength

The echoes of a troubled economy ring in our ears like a shrill siren. All around us are painful reminders of the downturn. These are not far-off demons that we hear about on CNN, but do not feel directly. The mills shutter, the factories close, the construction stops. Our neighbors and our friends are affected.

But in this. In these tragic losses, a town like ours finds its own strength. We do not shirk. We do not turn away. And this tradition runs deep. After James Talbott and friends founded this town in 1891, their aspirations as land barons made rich by the railroad evaporated when the railroad did not come to town. Their dreams of mining coal up the river capsized and sank on the rough waters of the North Fork. They, however, did not waiver. They stayed here and built a town and built an economy and built lives. When the world of timber began to be pulled apart by changing times and changing attitudes, the folks of Columbia Falls did not waiver. We stayed, and we worked on. When global forces changed the dynamics of aluminum and the conglomerates turned their back, the community came together to save their plant, to make it theirs. We did not waiver.

And now, hard times have come upon us again. From this, though, we find strength. Renaissance The Farmer’s Market this summer has brought crowds of up to 500 people to that central square. This year’s Heritage Days was the biggest in history. The First Best Place has a volunteer list of more than 400 people – your neighbors and friends. This town has always had strength in its community. Ask folks why they live here – those who have for generations, and those who just arrived a month ago – the most common answer will be a variation on community. “We love the small-town feel.” “It’s family-oriented.” “People are so nice here.”

Nothing that the First Best Place has achieved has been because of extraordinary people. None of what has happened in the last 12 months has been because of brilliant ideas or blinding talent. It has been ordinary people. Ordinary folks like the fellow who waters the native plant gardens at Discovery Square without anyone having to ask. Or the retired folks on fixed incomes who have made significant five-year pledges to the project. Ordinary folks made extraordinary by their gifts and their actions.

This is what community is about. This is the foundation for a renaissance. This is strength from adversity. This is pride and confidence and rebirth. We are watching a renaissance bloom before our eyes here in our town. Born from our past, and building into the future.