On a blustery December evening, Gene Wier and his grown son Bryan are wrenching on hand-built hot rods in their machine shop on the edge of Colstrip. There’s bright light, good grease smells, a football game on the TV. They tell me to come on in. When Gene ran for town council a few years back, he recalls, he was asked to sum up what makes this town of 2,300 residents unique. His answer cut to the basics: “We have a coal plant in our front yard, and a coal mine in our back yard.”
And like most people around here, he likes it that way. Continue Reading →
