Five Valleys Land Trust launches history book, recounts community campaign to save Mount Jumbo

Five Valleys Land Trust launched a short history book at an event held at the Missoula Public Library, where staff and longtime volunteers described the land trust—s origins and the community campaign that saved Mount Jumbo.

At the event, Lita Bile, identified herself as the conservation communications manager for the land trust and thanked the library and Missoula Community Access Television for hosting and recording the evening. "I wanna thank the Missoula Public Library for letting us use this gorgeous space," she said, and noted that copies of the book were available for sale after readings and a question-and-answer session.

The book traces the organization—s roots to a 1972 meeting of local residents who proposed a river-park system for Missoula and formed an early steering committee. Greg Tolleson, a longtime Five Valleys Land Trust board member and former executive director, read selections that described how a small, volunteer-led campaign grew into a broad community effort. "The river park system contemplated will take many years to develop, perhaps becoming a continuing project capable of linking generations in gracious civic enterprise," Tolleson read aloud.

Speakers and the text recounted the contested land-use climate of the early 1970s, including a 1971 rezoning that threatened a 20-acre parcel at the mouth of Hellgate Canyon and local opposition to commercial development along the Clark Fork River. Those conflicts helped spur the formation of the river-park advocacy group that evolved into Five Valleys Land Trust.

The book and presenters emphasized the grassroots nature of the Mount Jumbo campaign. The trust secured a purchase option with $5 in earnest money after raising $4,500 from the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation and using $500 it had on hand; the larger acquisition required a combination of a local open-space bond and private donations. Missoula voters approved a $5,000,000 open-space bond on Nov. 7, 1995, and a later $250,000 award from the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund, announced in October 1996, helped complete fundraising. Final deeds were recorded on March 27, 1997, turning the mountain into public ownership.

Readers and audience members at the launch heard details about volunteer fundraising techniques, community events and local businesses that supported the campaign, including bake sales, poster sales and public presentations. The presenters credited hundreds of volunteers, neighborhood groups, local photographers and civic organizations with sustaining the effort through repeated outreach and fundraising.

The launch included a short question-and-answer period in which audience members asked about sources used to verify dates and archival materials. Tolleson and others said the book relied on the organization—s files, newspaper archives and interviews with founding participants. The book is being sold at the event table and, the presenters said, in Missoula-area bookstores.

The event was framed as both a celebration of local conservation achievements and an oral- and written-history project intended to document how volunteers, donors and municipal voters combined to preserve open space in the Missoula Valley.