Ghost of My Youth

When I decided to make this trip, I was excited at the wondering how Great Falls would look 23 years after I left it. I expected it to look different, but I hoped much would have remained the same. Well, the answer is yes. At a glance, little has changed. The Missouri River is right where I left it; the streets are all there; they haven't moved the Air Force base... but that's about it.

The biggest difference is the casinos. Apparently, sometime in the late 1980s or the early 1990s, a state law was passed allowing gambling casinos to operate, and ownership of a casino seems to have consumed the minds of Great Falls' businesspeople! There are casinos everywhere, and in just about every combination business you can imagine...gas station and casino...drugstore and casino...massage parlor and casino...bank and casino (that would be a trick!!)....

In 1985 Great Falls felt to me like a frontier town. It had a restless feel to it, like the town was itching to bust out and DO something. It seemed a little stuck in the past, clinging to ways that the people were comfortable with and in no hurry to change...yet still restless. It would seem to me that the coming of the casinos (and their revenue) unleashed the city's ambition to beautify. And modernize. As far as I can tell, there remain few of the buildings along the main business drag, 10th Ave South, that were there in 1985. That goes for most of the city! The riverfront, which was a beautiful recreational area then, has been improved upon and spiffed up tremendously, with the addition of a bike/hike trail all along the south bank of the river, from one end of the city -- or so it seems -- to the other. At the eastern end, near the Air Force base, there's even now a Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center...whatever the hell that means.

But despite how the city has gained and grown, it has lost its rambunctious innocence. There were truly dangerous areas...river drives right ON the river's edge, with no guard rails; unrestricted access to high cliffs above the falls...with no warning signs about them. The main drag through the center of town had angled parking -- still does -- but back then each stall was fronted by a post with an electrical cord sticking out of it, into which, during the brutally cold winters here, everyone (everyone who was smart, anyhow) plugged their "block heater," an electric coil that was inserted by a professional into the radiator (or oil pan?) to keep the engine fluids warm enough to allow the engine to start after sitting for hours or more. I had one installed -- the plugs were at the front of every parking spot on base, too!

Great Falls seems to have grown up. And, like too many of us, growing up has meant having to shed most of its childishness and recklessness, and made it less exciting. Or maybe it's just MY childishness and recklessness that are gone.




The Great Falls, as they were named by Lewis and Clark upon their discovery, are actually a series of four waterfalls that drop the Missouri River 360 feet over a short stretch. Here are the Black Eagle Falls.




Here is probably the most spectacular of the falls, Rainbow Falls.




Obviously, the river is dammed, so the falls are no longer as spectacular as they used to be. A closer look at Rainbow Falls.




Visible here is the Crooked Falls, downstream from the Rainbow Falls.



There are still some dangerous areas, but
You Have Been Warned! ...maybe I wasn't sup-
posed to go here?


I tried to get fancy here. Any fancier and I fear I would have slid
down to -- and over -- the cliff's edge! What did I say earlier about
losing my childishness and recklessness?



There, in the middle distance, beyond and to the left of the djed tower and not too far from the cliffs, plays the ghost of my youth, in the ghost of my Jeep CJ-5, where I tested my mettle and my metal, power-climbing the seemingly near-vertical "Face" hill, and the other dusty hills now fenced off from access by the gubmint in effort to preserve the natural prairie there.




Of course, there are parts of the city that were there long before I ever was, and that still remain...like this building. I certainly don't recall ever seeing it before. Granted, it's been cleaned up and made into an office building of some sort. It's likely that it was in disrepair in the 1980s, and I ignored it.



Huh?

I tooled around this town for 16 months and never did figure out with any degree of confidence how the streets were labeled. I guess the dead presidents were done to ...uh... death.