After the news got out last week that a Billings Boy Scout troop had had a trailer full of camping gear stolen, community members responded with donations of money and gear. The publicity also rattled the conscience of the thief, apparently. Scoutmaster Rick Lindholm of Troop 373 said a member of the Billings Stake Center of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, at 2929 Belvedere Drive, left a meeting at the center Sunday night to find an anonymous letter on her windshield. The trailer was believed to have been stolen from the church parking lot, just off Grand Avenue and 30th Street West, on Jan. 12. Continue Reading →
Recent Posts
Photo Gallery: A stroll through a downtown neighborhood
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A little east of downtown Billings, there is an odd little neighborhood that is not really quite a neighborhood. The area I’m thinking of is bounded on the east and west by 15th and 22nd streets north, and on the north and south by Fourth and First avenues north. It is a hodgepodge of houses, industrial businesses and vacant lots. (more…) Continue Reading →
Filed under: Billings, Diversions, Downtown, East Billings Urban Renewal District, Phillips 66
Recalling long-gone bars, and two survivors
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When I first saw the subject line on the Billings Gazette website—“Retrospective: Closed Billings bars”—I was prepared to be unimpressed. I didn’t want to be a sucker nipping at “click bait,” those tantalizing packages the Gazette has been running on a regular basis in hopes of generating a lot of Web traffic with a minimum of work. (more…) Continue Reading →
Filed under: Prairie Lights, Addison Bragg, Al's Tavern, Arcade Bar, Billings Gazette, Casey's Golden Pheasant, Crystal Lounge, Empire Bar
Doc Harper’s adds a splash to downtown Billings
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A week later than planned, Doc Harper’s martini bar had a “soft opening” Wednesday, throwing open its doors at 4 p.m. By 5, the place was jumping, with nearly every seat on the main level taken and more people sitting in the mezzanine. “I called some friends and texted some kids, that’s all,” Barb Harper said. “I’m amazed at all the people here.” (more…) Continue Reading →
Filed under: Billings, Culture, Diversions, Babcock Theatre, Barb Harper, Belle en Blanc, Bruce Harper, Doc Harper's
Cowboy singer playing rare Billings show Friday
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Bruce Anfinson, a cowboy-country singer from Helena, has played music in Germany, Taiwan, Japan and Costa Rica, and a tune he wrote is the theme song for the Montana PBS show “Backroads of Montana.”
He’s played with scores of big-name musicians, jammed with Doc Watson and appeared on “Mountain Stage,” the American Public Radio program broadcast from Charleston, West Virginia. (more…) Continue Reading →
Filed under: Culture, Diversions, 'Backroads of Montana', Big Sky, Bruce Anfinson, Lone Mountain Ranch, Montana PBS, Yellowstone Valley Brewing Co.
Vice turns its lens on Williston
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From the bad boys at Vice, we have a photo gallery titled “Friday Night in the Bakken Oilfield.” The photos all were taken in Williston as part of a “Friday Night in…” series. The premise is pretty basic: “send photographers to the planet’s finest cities and towns to capture Friday night as it unfolds.” Use of the word “finest” may be facetious, I don’t know, but other cities featured so far include Hamburg, Bucharest and Ferguson, Missouri. Continue Reading →
Filed under: Last Best Blog, Bakken Oilfield, Cold Hard Cash Show, Vice, Williston
Boy Scouts’ trailer, full of camping gear, reported stolen
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A trailer full of camping gear belonging to a Billings Boy Scout troop was reported to have been stolen from a West End church parking lot. The theft was reported Monday by Scoutmaster Rick Lindholm, who said the trailer was stolen from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints parking lot at 2929 Belvedere Drive, just off Grand Avenue and 30th Street West. (more…) Continue Reading →
Filed under: Billings, News, Billings Police Department, Boy Scouts, Crime Prevention Center, LDS Church, Montana Canvas, Rick Lindholm
Laurel’s Owl Cafe revives bluegrass Saturday breakfast
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LAUREL—Next to the cash register at the Owl Café, there is a framed menu from the restaurant’s grand opening on Aug. 13, 1916. At the bottom of the menu it says: “Patrons will be entertained with music.”
Now, just shy of 100 years later, new owner Kathy Boyd can make the same promise, at least on Saturday mornings. She has revived the “bluegrass Saturday breakfast” tradition that made the Prairie Winds Café in tiny Molt, 25 miles northwest of Billings, so popular from 2001 until it closed in 2013. (more…) Continue Reading →
Filed under: Culture, Diversions, Highway 302, John Letcher, Kathy Boyd, LaLonnie Larson, Owl Cafe, Prairie Winds Cafe
You fight fire with fire, you only get burned
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When I was in high school in Minnesota in the 1970s, Mr. Manion, my friend’s father, used to brag about how he sent a portion of every paycheck to a strongly religious overseas terrorist organization. Oddly enough, the only other thing I remember hearing him brag about was having met Sen. Joe McCarthy, the serial fabulist and anti-Communist crusader from Wisconsin. (“Kiss the hand that shook the hand,” Mr. Manion liked to say.) (more…) Continue Reading →
Filed under: Prairie Lights, American Family Association, Bryan Fischer, Charlie Hebdo, Irish Republican Army, Montana News Association
Another vehicle slams into railroad underpass
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Last month, I wrote a story about how a man driving a pickup and pulling a skid steer on a trailer crashed into and damaged the railroad underpass at North 21st Street between Minnesota and Montana avenues. Well, this morning a little after 11, I was standing about 20 feet away when another person, this one driving a U-Haul, crashed into the underpass, which is owned by Montana Rail Link. (more…) Continue Reading →
