Remember When?

30 YEARS AGO • JANUARY 23, 1992

TRAFFIC LIGHT EYED FOR FALLS

Thompson Falls could be gaining what used to be a tongue-in-cheek reference to a step towards the future.

At the January meeting of the city council, Chief of Police Don Manfred made a proposal to install a traffic light at the intersection of Main and Mill streets to control pedestrian crossings near Doug’s Drug (True Value).

Manfred told the council because of the changes in parking since the reconstruction of Main Street and the increase of traffic along the road, which also serves as Montana Highway 200, a flashing yellow caution light would be appropriate to warn drivers of the pedestrian crossing and remind them that pedestrians have the right of way and vehicles must stop.

Manfred explained that he has witnessed numerous incidents where vehicles fail to stop for pedestrians when they have entered the crossing zone. He noted that not all of the blame lies with the vehicles, that the layout of the street contributes to a lessening of the ability of motorists to see the pedestrians.

Mayor Larry Ward and Manfred were authorized to contact the state Department of Transportation about the placement of the traffic control light as it is ultimately up to the state to determine if such a device is warranted.

NOXON AUTHOR RECALLS

‘NOT MUCH CHANGES’

“The more things change, the more they remain the same,” is a familiar adage. Feuds over the amount of money and attention given to roads and bridges in the county, political and religious fanatics inhabiting the valleys of the west end. All these happenings sound contemporary. But are they?

Mona Vanek, historian and author of a three-volume set of books entitled, Behind These Mountains, says, “All of these are normal for Sanders County. Just take a look into the pages of the Sanders County Independent Ledger in 1917. You’ll see the same kinds of things occurring. It’s not new at all.”

After spending the past 25 years of her life collecting photographs from family members whose parents and grandparents settled this valley, Vanek has an acute sense of what it took to create a life from the rough land these pioneers found when they came west.

Waves of people flowed across the plains and over the mountains seeking homesteads. Cyclic weather patterns both drew and repulsed these early settlers. “The railroads beckoned new settlers to the west, enticing them with tales of wide-open spaces where they could raise wheat, grain and livestock,” she says. Weather and natural disasters sent many back home, but others left the drought-stricken eastern counties in Montana and headed west until they found lush forests and flowing springs and rivers. That brought them to Sanders County.”

Prospectors – then and now – discovered and staked claims on the seemingly boundless deposits of copper, silver and gold in these mountains. The great riches lay deep beneath the rocks unavailable to them by the pick and shovel or panning method.

Timber was then and now a mainstay of county industry, employing many in the forests and sawmills. “Timber continued to be the export crop, most of it transported out of the Clark Fork River in great annual river drives or in boxcar loads of hand split cedar posts,” says Vanek.

“Until the railroad and highways paralleled the river, most immigration was difficult, coming on rudimentary trails. Stores, schools and saloons began and ended. Indians used the valley and its resources less and less as more homesteaders arrived and took the traditional hunting and fishing grounds for homesteads.”

Vanek utilizes the pages of the Sanders County Independent Ledger frequently to give a feel to the reader just what the tenor of public opinion was in those days. “1917 was a year of momentous conflicts around Noxon. A Montana war, heated up along the Clark’s Fork when Noxon and Dixon, a hamlet in the eastern part of Sanders County, squared off. Delegations were haranguing the county commissioners for bridges across the Clark’s Fork.

History buffs, longtime Sanders County residents as well as newcomers and genealogists will agree that Vanek’s lifelong project has been well worth the wait.