Local flavor adds to our county pride

Guest editorial Philipsburg Mail
Posted 1/16/19

Unwritten rules plague many a small town.

Ours included.

There’s good and bad in that situation which can often be dependent upon who you know.

And most of us prefer to live in these …

This item is available in full to subscribers.

Please log in to continue

E-mail
Password
Log in

Local flavor adds to our county pride

Posted

Unwritten rules plague many a small town.

Ours included.

There’s good and bad in that situation which can often be dependent upon who you know.

And most of us prefer to live in these sparsely populated mountains because of the absence of rules — even though some cannot be escaped.

There is a greatness to this land and the people who populate it, and it is evidenced in words like “organic” and “locally sourced.”

Our communities are so behind the times and so out of date that they have become fashionable once again.

Our farms and ranches are, for the most part, locally owned.

As are our businesses, throughout the valley, which means we can talk to the owner if we have problems when we buy a product or service.

That’s something special.

This situation is created by necessity and by design.

A county of 3,000 souls is inherently interdependent.

In other words, we have to look out for each other because there are so few of us that your survival might be dependent upon your neighbor’s survival.

But that doesn’t explain the excellence of the goods and services that are available to us.

Our cousins in the big city have finally awakened to the fact that the closer you are to where something is grown, the better it tastes.

Beer from the Philipsburg brewery is great and in no small part because it hasn’t been sitting in a warehouse, then trucked long distance to another warehouse, warming and cooling along the way.

The beef, pork and lamb raised in this valley is incomparable to what you’ll find in a big city store, as is the game meet.

We at this newspaper are heartened by such realities because everything old is new again. After 131 years in business, we’re feeling pretty chipper.

Granite County has been hit recently with a cold wave. We’ve seen much worse and certainly we’ll see more cold and snow before the spring thaw.

So this might be a good time to shake off your cabin fever and go out for a little shopping spree at one of your favorite local stores.

Maybe you can get a bite to eat. There aren’t many communities our size that have so many restaurants and, again, almost all of them are locally owned and operated.