By Jim Harmon

It’s amazing how much you can discover about a community from a single page of a local newspaper.

For example, I offer up the “local” page of the July 3rd Missoulian from 1896.

There you will find an indication of why Missoula is called the Garden City: “One of the most beautiful lawns in the city is that of H.C. Myers on East Front Street. He has a number of rose bushes in bloom making a beautiful picture.”

Also reflective of the moniker is a story about the Bitter Root strawberry harvest: “They are of superior quality and as of yore are taken in preference of berries from any other section of the country.”

All the water needed for agriculture created a few problems, though. At one spot in the Hell Gate Canyon, “the mud (from water finding its way out of irrigation ditc

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