Group organizes activities to mark county centennial
Canda Harbaugh/The Western News Jeff Gruber of the Lincoln County Centennial Board talks about activities this summer during a meeting at Libby Dam.
The year was 1909 and Lincoln County had just formed. Somehow, Libby became the county seat after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned its own decision to grant that designation to Eureka.
Looking back at newspaper archives and other historical documents, Mark White of Libby’s Heritage Museum found evidence of resentment, hurt pride and perhaps some shady dealings.
“I’m astounded at the corruption and ill feeling I have found,” White said at last week’s Lincoln County Centennial Board meeting. “The more you dig, the uglier it gets.”
White is assembling a Heritage Museum display of how Libby became the county seat. The artifacts for the endeavor have already been gathered, he said.
The Centennial Board, made up of volunteers representing Eureka, Libby and Troy, met Thursday to discuss the progress of the county’s centennial plans this summer.
The board originally had thoughts of planning one large countywide celebration but then wondered where, in a county larger than the state of Maine, the celebration would occur.
To avoid reviving historic rivalries between the northern and southern parts of the county, the board decided to instead adopt a common theme throughout the county’s existing annual events this summer.
Eureka’s county fair, Troy’s Fourth of July celebration and Libby’s Kootenai River Rodeo will each embrace the County Fair Board-inspired “Hats off to 100 years” theme through parade floats, contests, free souvenirs and banners and posters. Any group can have its 2009 event listed on posters if it adopts the theme and signs up by April 15.
The most exciting development presented at the meeting was artist Patty Rambo’s finalized illustrations of the commemorative silver and copper coins. The next step is to get a wood carving of both sides made. The board hopes to have the 1.5-inch diameter coins for sale by June 1.
They will be available at the Eureka Museum, Troy Chamber of Commerce and Heritage Museum, $15 for copper coins and about $30 for silver coins.
The other lasting tribute will be a 96-page hardbound centennial book that Melody Condron, Troy Chamber of Commerce president and Lincoln County librarian, put together through the Library Foundation and with the help of numerous volunteers.
“It’s more of a statement of where we are in time,” Condron said at the meeting, “like a snapshot or a yearbook.”
Condron explained that the style and size of the volume, which is 10-by-13 inches, was based on the Lincoln County War Record book. It is scheduled to be to a publisher in Helena by mid to late May, and the first release will be at the county fair the last weekend of August. The centennial book is available for pre-order at Eureka, Libby and Troy libraries for $21.95.
Coin illustration
The idea behind Patty Rambo’s illustrations of the commemorative centennial coin was to use what tied the county together, historically and present day. The coin may be simplified before production based on a call Rambo received Monday that it had too much detail for a 1.5-inch diameter coin.
An outline of the county shows the Kootenai River, Yaak River and Tobacco River connecting Eureka, Troy and Libby. A Kootenai Indian stands next to a tulle reed teepee and trades with historical figure David Thompson. A man pans for gold and another stands with a logging saw, representing the county’s biggest historical industries. A woman holding a baby symbolizes the female faction of the county’s pioneers, and a fly fisherman represents modern recreation.
On the back, the Great Northern caboose of the past and the Burlington Northern Santa Fe engine of the present wrap around the county’s predominant trees – the ponderosa, tamarack and Douglas fir.