Trego's Mountain Ear

A look at the map, and you can see that Lincoln County was created to work.  Sure, Yaak and Sylvanite weren’t on the Great Northern like the rest of the communities – but in 1909, most of the towns were connected to each other by the railroad – which from Stryker to Libby was only 5 years old.

Logging and lumber was the game – the dam on Fortine Creek could transport logs to the big mill in Eureka, opening 20 miles of stream for harvest.  From old Rexford to Libby, the Kootenai Valley was gentle enough to allow logging railroads.  Libby Creek led to the millpond at Libby – and a spanking new continent crossing railroad connected nearly all the communities.

Libby won the election and became the county seat – and the county was connected by the steel wheels and the river.  It actually worked as a county for over 50 years – but just as an outside force (the first railroad relocation) built the county, another proposal – this time from the Corps of Engineers – changed the geography so that it became more of a challenge for Lincoln County government to work. 

Drive 37 from Eureka to Libby.  The small towns along the river are gone.  The rails now come from Stryker to Libby – and Amtrak makes but one stop in Lincoln County.  Rexford has moved from the valley floor to the high ground – and there are a lot of miles without farms, ranches or towns between Rexford and Jennings Rapids.  Libby Dam left the county with a beautiful long lake – but that lake separates the remaining communities.

The geography no longer connects the communities – North Lincoln County now commutes and shops in Whitefish and Kalispell.  The Inland Empire of Spokane and it’s surrounding communities is closest to Troy.  The hollowed out center, with it’s beautiful blue water, creates shopping and commuting patterns that leave Libby isolated.

Libby, in the Fifties, was connected through J. Neils and the logging industry along that valley.  J. Neils operated from Libby and had another base in Rexford.  With the valley flooded, either Eureka became isolated or Libby did.  Again, Kalispell is almost as close as Libby – and offered more.  Libby moved from having a large lumber operation to virtually none.  The most reliable jobs, the best jobs, became those in the schools and the courthouse.  The alliterative phrase ‘courthouse clique’ moved into being a real thing in Libby.

Glance at https://lincolncountymt.us/ and get an idea of the county jobs that exist in the courthouse (and annex).  When the sawmill and plywood plant were operating, county jobs were relatively low paid.  Now, with the union jobs gone, those political jobs are the good jobs.  And, generally speaking, the county clerk and recorder candidates have years of training and indoctrination in the department.  The treasurer spent a long apprenticeship as a county employee before running for office.  If you want to go on, check the website – I’d be writing the same thing over and over.  Let’s use the County Treasurer or Clerk & Recorder positions as an example: if you were to run for either position, from north county, and managed to win, your first task toward success would be winning over the employees you were elected to supervise.  I doubt if I could do it – it was in a meeting in Libby where I first heard the abbreviation PLU.  The speaker wanted to bring in People Like Us – and I don’t believe I would qualify.  In the unlikely event that a north county resident would be elected to the position, he or she would not get a honeymoon to learn the job, or inherit staff that would naturally support the elected leadership.  The people elected to run those departments have been, and will continue to be, PLUs.

Our county commissioners serve in six-year terms.  That was probably a good idea – it takes a long time, even with total immersion, to learn the job.   A new commissioner comes in trusting the county employees to tell him things as they are, and takes a while to learn that he or she is not necessarily on the same side as the clerk & recorder, or whichever employee the new commissioner is relying on.  By the time the new commissioner is up for reelection, he or she is a lame duck.  Look at the past couple of elections – one term and out.  I don’t expect it to change.  The people we elect to run the county government are not so well connected with the courthouse clique that they can govern as they should and be reelected.

The other problem for a new North County commissioner is that, geographically, the Troy and Libby commissioners are going to be closer to each other.  When I was county agent, living in Rawlins Tracts, my commissioner came from Eureka – and I was in a Libby suburb.  The southern boundary for the North County commissioner has moved north – reflecting the increasing population in the north portion of the county.

The folks who created Lincoln County in 1909 were good thinkers – they created a county where the communities were interconnected and could work together.  They didn’t anticipate Libby Dam and how a wonderful hydroelectric plant and recreation lake would affect county government.  Our new geography has divided the county.

Is there a solution?  Yes – but it isn’t one that everyone will like.  North Lincoln County has a population and a tax base about like Blaine County.  The distance between West Kootenai and Eureka isn’t much different than the distance between Chinook (Blaine’s County Seat) and  Turner.  Both counties border Canada and have border crossings.  County 57 is an idea whose time has come.  Blaine county has too many similarities to casually dismiss the idea as unworkable.

South Lincoln County can keep the infrastructure – somehow I don’t expect many of the ‘courthouse clique’ will clamor to move north.  The geographic problem becomes a geographic solution when we form county 57.  After all, Lincoln County was created when governance from Kalispell wasn’t working, and County 56 became a viable solution in 1909.  It’s time to embrace a county 57 solution – so our county government can work again.