The Trailer Gypsies spent some time in Great Falls – not sure when, but it was back when Cool Beans was open. Here’s what the gypsies had to say:
We have a love/hate relationship with Great Falls. We enjoyed our visit but found that: (1) it’s windy … turns out that Great Falls is the fourth windiest city in the U.S; (2) it’s overrun with bars and casinos … no wonder billboards remind the locals that Montana has the highest drunk driving rate in the nation; (3) it’s economy appears to be teetering on the razor’s edge … Wal-Mart is the city’s third largest employer and (4) it is Ground Zero … some 200 long range nuclear missiles are buried in silos outside of town. Putting all these negatives aside, we enjoyed the historic downtown, green parks, museums and fascinating Lewis and Clark legacy.
Well…some truth to the criticism – it is windy, and their are lots of casinos – but “teetering on razor’s edge” is a bit much. Still, some good pix at their site.
I like their description of the court house on page 2 of their tour of our city:
The Cascade County Courthouse is a landmark in Great Falls. This imposing three-story English Renaissance Revival structure, with its striking copper dome, was built at at the turn of the century.
‘Turn of the century’, huh? That was, uh, lesseee. . .twelve years ago?
Also, according to their ‘Whats New’ page,
http://www.trailergypsies.com/Whats%20New.htm
They were through here on 3/1/2006