If you build it, they will grind: Book tells the history of skateparks in Montana

In the early 2000s, skateboarders in Montana made do with ramps in backyards, or curbs until business owners kicked them out. Attempts to build more permanent parks, whether indoor or outdoor, didn’t last too long.

In Missoula, the prime land on the southwest corner of the Orange Street Bridge was just storage for junk construction materials. After years of lobbying, raising money and learning the ins and outs of city government, a group of skateboarders and folks they’d enlisted to their cause helped transform it into Mobash, the state’s first proper concrete skatepark, one impressive enough that Tony Hawk himself brought a crew to the grand opening in the summer of 2006 with thousands of people in attendance.

Twenty years later, now there are more than 50 parks across the Treasure Stat