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Libby

Travel Montana

Libby Directory Listings

A view from 1939:

LIBBY, (2,053 alt.,1,752 pop.), is a lumberjacks' town. They come in from nearby logging camps for supplies and occasional celebrations that are vastly exaggerated in legend and fiction. The lumberjacks have a style all their own, and a swaggering vitality that seems to be increased rather than diminished by their exhausting and dangerous work. Though they do not invariably appear in brilliant checked shirts and mackinaws, stag pants, calked boots, and wiry black beards, the streets of Libby nevertheless give evidence that this is Paul Bunyan's country. Libby's sawmill, second largest (1938) in Montana, saws between 60 and 80 million board feet of lumber annually.

Libby, named for the daughter of one of a group of prospectors who discovered gold on Libby Creek in 1862, is the seat of Lincoln County, one of the most mountainous and heavily wooded areas in the State. Much of the region is not readily accessible but its scenery and fine fishing repay the effort to reach it. Near the town the rare mineral, vermiculite, is mined.

In the Public Library, left wing of the courthouse, is a photostatic copy of a map of the Kootenai region drawn in 1813 by David Thompson. The original is in the British Museum.

Source: Montana: A State Guide Book; Compiled and Written by the Federal Writers' Project of the Work Projects Administration for the State of Montana; September, 1939.