The Full Spectrum in Philipsburg

Sayr Building, downtown Philipsburg

By coincidence, I wound up there on a Sunday. My life had not broken down. No effort to emulate the famous poem from Richard Hugo was intended, although the poem was on my mind (and a copy was in my bag).

The schedule covered a Philipsburg visit days earlier but Sunday worked best for our schedule. As we came upon the bustling city block, I wondered what Hugo would think. We entered a Philipsburg far removed from his hard-scrabble town. He painted a portrait of a struggling town, the red hair of a young waitress the sole silver lining in a rundown town.

In 2016, the main drag was almost crowded, the businesses small but the town was full of tourists. My sister and I were among them. Antique, crafts, outdoor accessories and other business fill storefronts on the busy block.

I cannot knock any town where local artisans fill the city blocks. No chains clamor to move into Philipsburg, dozens of miles from the interstate and any population more than a few thousand people. Here we find businesses run solely by locals. A little green sign suggested the turn, which dumped us onto a seldom-traveled road, passing a church and an august school building, the tallest structure in the vicinity. Soon we reached a crossroads where Philipsburg bustled on a Sunday afternoon.

At the town crossroads sits the anchor of the revival, the Philipsburg Brewery. Easily the brightest building in town, the former Sayr Bank building renovated to house a burgeoning brewery's taproom. With its canary exterior and brick interior, the brewery was not hard to find. After tasting their saisons and wheat beers, anyone would believe that a brewery can thrive in a town of 800. Above the taps is a mounted mountain goat who wears the various beer medals the Philipsburg Brewery has earned.

The brewery visit came in two passes – I had a Rope Swing saison, my sister a Haybag Hefeweizen. We adjourned the shop at the boutiques, then returned for variations on our earlier beers – for me a Sundress (saison dry-hopped with Amarillo, Sorachi Ace and Citra hops) and for Jenny, Haypricot (hefeweizen brewed with apricots). Both rounds were memorable, well beyond the mediocre craft breweries that litter the American landscape. The beers make the drive to Philipsburg Brewery worthwhile. For a memento, I went with bandanna.

The vibe of Philipsburg defied the small towns often overrun by weekends. People seemed genuinely happy to encounter visitors, a tacit acknowledgement that they need those visitors to survive. Despite being out of their popular Razzu seasonal, a bartender told the beer hunters to take their growlers up to the production brewery, the former Montana Silver Springs Water Plant, where they had some left to pour.

The “glad to see you here” vibe resonates throughout the town. The clerk at one boutique was the artist behind all their pottery. After picking a vintage Yellowstone postcard, the owner of an antique store eagerly guided me toward other stacks of postcards. I only need the one shot ---- carriages stopped along the Grand Tour close to Mount Washburn – and I got it.

Georgetown Lake loiterers

The only paved route to Philipsburg, Montana Route 1, is a wonder of its own, a scenic route through the Pintlar Wilderness. It loops to Interstate 90 on both ends. We approached from the east end, twisting next to the Boulder River and the Continental Divide from Helena to Butte. Route 1 only spans 60-plus miles but packs more beauty than roads 10 times its length.

In Anaconda the road passes abreast of the Anaconda Smokestack, the 585-foot chimney once part of the town’s smelting operations and was saved after a community push.

Despite the departure of industry, the stack, which could fit the Washington Monument inside of its brick walls, became a point of pride. Away from the former mining facilities, the town buzzed with post-church activity. Anaconda’s piece of Route 1 was lined with well-kept homes and lawns, revealing none of the depredation too common after small towns lose a pivotal employer.

Shores of Georgetown Lake

Once the road rises away from Anaconda, Route 1 reaches Georgetown Lake in a few minutes. Deep blue and clear, the lake formed from a damn on North Flint Creek, but could pass for a natural body of water. Huge homes stared back across the lake, and only a handful of kayakers and water fowl entered the Georgetown waters.

We walked along the shore, birds gliding in and out of the rocks where they nested. In this region, ducks are more attuned to humans, flapping away before we could even consider approaching them. The water was downright icy, but relaxing on feet that pounded 13 miles of Helena road. The sharp rocks on the shoreline were less hospitable.

Entering the Philipsburg Valley

The Skalkaho Highway branches off, connecting this wilderness to the Bitterroot Valley some 50 miles away. Passages between the ranges are infrequent; even with of its length unpaved, I wished time existed to explore that hidden road and the Bitterroot Range connection it offered.

The road hugs mountainside to descend into the Philipsburg Valley, where cattle farms abound. North of Philipsburg, the mountain ridges run with an unusual green, perhaps owing a debt to moist winter. I expected browned hills, not the supple green no one could escape.

Maybe that is the brilliance of highlighting Philipsburg. After its silver-driven heyday, it was already surrounded by ghost towns and boom towns that never boomed. The town survived and the people who believed turned it into a destination.

 Headed away from Philipsburg, Route 1 follows North Flint Creek studiously. The creek drew its share of fly-fishers methodically flinging lines into the rolling currents. In the trees along the road I occasionally spotted loitering mule deer and pronghorn, each contemplating a sprint across Route 1. The cattle herds continued, including one herd that seemed to graze while straddling a ridgeline. At the route’s western terminus, Drummond barely received a whistle stop before I-90 intruded. Montana passes that way.

Not every town deserves a poem, not every town can claw back from the brink. Philipsburg is alive and well, its buildings clad in brick and brilliant hues.I'd like to think of Huge bellying up to the Philipsburg taproom and knocking out a pour or two.

As for the degrees of gray that Hugo illuminated as a symbol for dozens of other small mining and lumber towns, they mostly resided in T-shirts sold at different outfitters. Of course I bought one –the shirt colors are what pass for degrees of gray in 21st-century Philipsburg.