“There are, I think, undeniably, new winds sweeping across America. They are indeed gusty and changeable, but they are new - and they will alter what happens in Montana . (either for) better or worse, (depending) on Montanans and how they, or you, read those winds.” The quote is from one of my favorite historians, K. Ross Toole, a Montana rancher who accepted the Hammond Professorship at the University of Montana in 1965 – a post he held until his death in 1981.
In 1881, Missoula was still a fur-trading and agricultural economy, with gold being discovered in the region. “To the looming emigrants this spring,” wrote The Weekly Missoulian, “we would say, Do not condemn Montana until you have seen Missoula County – justly called the ‘garden spot.’ ”
In 1923, the Treasure State News reported on a Worden-area farmer who claimed his tobacco crop was “equal, if not superior, in quality to that grown anywhere else.”