{"id":14594,"date":"2016-10-25T09:25:57","date_gmt":"2016-10-25T15:25:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/?p=14594"},"modified":"2016-10-25T09:25:57","modified_gmt":"2016-10-25T15:25:57","slug":"something-lost-expansion-changes-life-on-the-west-end","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/2016\/10\/something-lost-expansion-changes-life-on-the-west-end\/","title":{"rendered":"Something lost: Expansion changes life on the West End"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Gabel\"<\/a>

Phoebe Tollefson<\/p>

Everett Gabel on his 100-acre farm just southwest of Billings city limits.<\/p><\/div>\n

Editor’s note<\/strong>: This is the second piece in a three-day series looking what has been lost as Billings has grown steadily in recent decades. Yesterday Phoebe Tollefson wrote about the South Side. Today she takes a look at the West End.<\/em><\/p>\n

In 1953, Veda Hentz moved into her new home on Rosewyn Lane, a few blocks east of Rehberg Lane. The area was mostly open countryside, and she and her husband were eager to settle in, having kept a close eye on the construction of the house.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe watched it day by day,\u201d she said, adding, \u201cSeems like now it takes a week and you\u2019ve got a house up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hentz kept a garden and whenever there was a surplus of vegetables, corn especially, she\u2019d take them around the corner to the Poly Food Basket, which set up shop that same year. She liked the semi-rural feel the place had.<\/p>\n

The area\u2019s appeal was similar for Peter and Suzanne Lombardozzi, who built their house farther south, on Patricia Lane, in 1959.<\/p>\n

There were just a handful of other houses on the block at the time, and looking west past Rehberg Lane, the two saw only tracts of farmland. A dairy farm operated nearby, and cows and horses grazed in the area.<\/p>\n

The Lombardozzis\u2019 lot was in the county when they began building.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe thought we were gonna cut a fat hog and cut our taxes,\u201d Peter said.<\/p>\n

\"CapreAir_Variable\"<\/a><\/div><\/div>But the city had annexed them by the time the house was complete. City workers paved the street and new neighbors began moving in.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt got built up rather quickly,\u201d Suzanne said.<\/p>\n

Like most others who moved in, the Lombardozzis picked the area because it was cheap. But looking back they see a downside of moving there, pointing out that loss of farmland is the real story of Billings\u2019 West End.<\/p>\n

Everett Gabel, a third-generation sugar beet farmer, agrees.<\/p>\n

Living in the same area southwest of the city limits his whole life, he watched for 75 years as it transformed from farmers\u2019 domain to ground for new development.<\/p>\n

Gabel\u2019s house, which sits on 100 acres, is his second childhood home, having bought it from his parents. Within a mile of the property there is an indoor water park, Honda dealership, Harley Davidson dealership, two restaurants, a furniture store, sheet metal store, bus charter, industrial gas supplier, miniature golf and game center, computer repair store and a half-dozen industrial supply or service companies.<\/p>\n

Growing up, Gabel said, the city appeared far away.<\/p>\n

\u201cBack in the \u201950s, Billings didn\u2019t put out much of a glow at night,\u201d he said one day in mid-September, walking to his living room window to tug on the blinds.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou better have these things shut at night,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"Lombards\"<\/a>

Phoebe Tollefson<\/p>

Peter and Suzanne Lombardozzi, outside of their old home on Patricia Lane. There were just a handful of houses on the block when the couple moved in in 1959.<\/p><\/div>\n

A tractor dealership now stands on the site of Gabel\u2019s first childhood home. St. Vincent Healthcare owns a plot of land near Shiloh Road and King Avenue West, where he used to grow malt barley and sugar beets. And this will be his final year farming land near near Mullowney Lane and Elysian Boulevard. That will be cleared for Harmony Meadows, a subdivision planned for 655 homes.<\/p>\n

Billings has spread westward \u201chop, skip and jump\u201d style, says Gabel, for whose family Gabel Road was named. It\u2019s made him travel farther to and from the extra ground he leases in and around Billings to farm, and it\u2019s brought in new neighbors who are sometimes impatient with the downsides of living next door to a farmer. When Gabel burns the grasses along irrigation ditches to improve water flow, smoke floats to nearby properties.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also started a trend that can\u2019t be undone. Subdividing leads to more subdividing, creating 10- and 20-acre plots that are perfect for city folk who crave a little countryside but unworkable for farmers. So developers do away with an irrigation ditch or two\u2014ditches that replenish the groundwater\u2014and water well levels start going down.<\/p>\n

\"Hentz\"<\/a>

Phoebe Tollefson<\/p>

Veda Hentz has a laugh during lunch at the Southside Senior Center recently. Hentz moved from the South Side to the West End in 1953.<\/p><\/div>\n

Wyeth Friday, interim director and planning division manager for Billings and Yellowstone County, called the subdivision activity west of Billings \u201cself-perpetuating,\u201d and \u201ctough to watch.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ll see a lot of things where somebody says, \u2018Well, I\u2019m coming to develop these 10 acres,\u2019\u201d Friday said. \u201c\u2018Subdivision, yeah, it\u2019s prime ag land. But it\u2019s only 10 acres and so it\u2019s too small to really farm.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

As available land becomes more scarce, Gabel faces the tough reality that all farmers face today: He needs to produce more to make a living. Gabel\u2019s dad worked 100 acres. He\u2019s had to farm 1,000.<\/p>\n

In the past, Gabel fought any change that would take farmland out of production. He showed up at public meetings to protest the I-90 overpass at Zoo Drive. He grumbled as neighbors sold land to afford retirement or cheaper ground in rural communities.<\/p>\n

But his views are changing.<\/p>\n

Gabel no longer blames farmers for taking advantage of lucrative offers to sell.<\/p>\n

With new businesses crowding him to the north, Gabel has rezoned his land from agricultural to light industrial. His immediate plans post-retirement are to lease his 100 acres to a turf farmer. He said he has no intention of selling the land, but if he gets deeper into retirement and someone offers him a high price, he might reconsider.<\/p>\n

Gabel\u2019s given years of thought to the problem of development pushing out farming, and for him, it\u2019s as simple as it is unavoidable.<\/p>\n

\u201cLike I said,\u201d he said with a shrug, \u201cGod don\u2019t make any more ground.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Monday<\/strong>: On the South Side, memories of a different world<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Coming Wednesday<\/strong>: The march of progress in the Heights.<\/p>\n

Phoebe<\/span>\u00a0Tollefson has written for outlets large and small, from McClatchy DC to The Sheridan Press. She lives in Billings, her hometown.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Editor’s note: This is the second piece in a three-day series looking what has been lost as Billings has grown steadily in recent decades. Yesterday Phoebe Tollefson wrote about the South Side. Today she takes a look at the West End. In 1953, Veda Hentz moved into her new home on Rosewyn Lane, a few […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133,"featured_media":14595,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,18],"tags":[5091,5093,5092,3686],"class_list":["post-14594","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-billings","category-diversions","tag-everett-gabel","tag-peter-and-suzanne-lombardozzi","tag-veda-hentz","tag-west-end","prominence-top-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/133"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14594"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14594\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14595"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}