Working

It seems as though construction at the corner of Brooks Street and South Higgins Avenue is as much a Missoula mainstay as the M on Mount Sentinel or the Hip Strip itself. However, three years into the project, developer Eric Hefty insists the end result will be well worth the wait - for those who can afford it, anyway. Hefty's project, simply known as The Corner, is an eight-unit condominium development across the street from Hellgate High School. His wife Cheryl designed the interior, while he designed the exterior. Cheryl describes the look as an “old-new” design - a more modern, Flatiron appearance on the outside, with a rustic yet modern look within.

COLOMA - Never has dirt looked so tempting. The one-square-meter patch of earth taunted Frances Clark. Just gazing at the gritty surface, the University of Montana student knew it was full of treasures from the late 19th century. What hid under the surface, however, was the real mystery. “I want to move on!” she said. For three straight days, she picked away at the same spot, located within a grid sectioning off a small area of Coloma. Little history is recorded about the abandoned ghost town tucked in the dense forest of the Garnet Mountains, only a short drive from the mining town of Garnet.

Jen Bohman blames the Internet for her recently developed case of joy - and anxiety. For the past two years Bohman has been designing and sewing women's hats in her garage, and selling her creations at Missoula's People's Market and local fairs. Now, the little one-person company, called Piper & Paisley, is about to go big time, thanks to www.etsy.com, a Web site dedicated to handmade items and the people who sell them.

Last summer, Larry Normandy made sandwiches at Quiznos. This summer, he's herding sheep on Mount Jumbo. He rides a horse named Magic, and lives in a wagon on the side of the mountain. “I love it,” said Normandy, 41. “I can't think of a better way to spend the summer.” Last year, Enrique Marquez Banda of Mexico herded the sheep and made $800 a month, or the equivalent of about $2.30 an hour. Missoula residents started a fund for Marquez and presented him with $2,070 as he departed for his home in Chihuahua.

Larry Flanagan began selling cars in 1965. In those years, he's seen some stressful and quirky things, on and off the car lot, that have rippled through his profession - like the fuel crisis of 1973 and the exorbitant 20 percent interest rates on car loans in the 1980s. He's sold cars to movie stars and locals, to people (he learned later) who never intended to pay for the car he sold them, and over the years he's developed a loyal clientele, including the man from Mineral County who shows up every few years to buy a vehicle, arriving with a mug of whiskey in hand and a pistol on his hip.

ARLEE - Business is shaking on the main drag through town. Literally. “I’ve had things fall off the wall when they’re working right out front,” said Tony Hoyt, owner of Hummingbird Toys and Treats. “It’s really incredible.” Incredible is just one of the words merchants use to describe the ongoing highway project that will eventually widen Highway 93 from two lanes to four. Some are considerably less kind, others more conciliatory.

Linda Juneau remembers that when the groundbreaking ceremony for the University of Montana's new Native American Center took place in April 2008, Francis Vandenberg issued a challenge to UM President George Dennison. The longtime Arlee public school teacher and Salish elder hoped that a larch tree near the construction site did not become a casualty of the project. But she provided an out, adding that if it had to be removed, its wood should be used in the new building.

By JAMIE KELLY of the Missoulian

HAMILTON - When you're going to put together a $3 million helicopter, step No. 1 is unpacking it from the cardboard boxes.

Last November, a dented, scratched, stripped and completely dismantled Bell 205-A1 chopper arrived at the Rotorcraft Service Center's 45,000-square-foot campus just south of Hamilton. It was an injured bird desperately in need of new guts, new skin and - well, new everything.

Rumpelstiltskin spun straw into gold. Now he's coming for sawdust. After generations of disrespect, wood refuse is the material of the moment. It took two days to run through all the ways it can be thermochemically converted into gasoline, mixed with coal dust for clean-burning pellet fuel or cooked into charcoal to capture carbon emissions at the Montana Bioenergy Workshop in Missoula. And that's assuming it hasn't been assigned to more traditional uses like paper and particleboard.

By MICHAEL JAMISON of the Missoulian

KALISPELL - As lumber mills grind to a halt, their saws dulled against the blunt edge of a national housing slump, loggers and log haulers are likewise being forced out of their woods work.

No new home construction means no new need for lumber, and the trickle-down has snapped links in the entire supply chain, from stump to street.