Three candidates debate at Montana Newspaper Association event

FORTINE – Decades ago, John Chase spent his childhood summers in East Glacier Park. While most kids were itching to head for the hills of the national park, one of Chase’s favorite activities during those months away from home was watching passing trains at the Great Northern Railway depot.

Chase can remember the names of the trains that once called on East Glacier Park, like the Empire Builder, the Mail Express and the Oriental Limited, and how he longed to climb aboard and ride the rails.

Candidates spar in Butte

City planners are gathering input on how to energize the historic center

Michael Selders made an initial appearance in District Court in Great Falls

Candidates to debate Saturday in Butte

Body was found in a submirged car near downtown Missoula

Fourth trip to Indian Country by a sitting president in 80 years

New offices part of a settlement in voting-rights lawsuit

Employees at Plum Creek Timber Co.’s fiberboard plant are back at work today picking up the pieces of this week’s explosion and fire in Columbia Falls. Company spokesperson Kate Tate says all 183 medium density fiberboard plant employees are assisting in the cleanup as the investigation into the cause of Tuesday’s explosion begins.

Tate said an initial inspection of the facility showed that much of the equipment inside the fiberboard plant escaped the blast unscathed, but there was extensive water damage to the facility’s computer systems. Tate estimates that the plant could be reopened in a month.

Railroad outlines its preparedness as more Bakken crude rolls through the Flathead Valley

Department demonstrating better communication with victims

President to speak on gamut of issues facing Native Americans

Traffic on Meridian Road diverted while authorities investigate report of a bomb at UPS shipping facility

A preliminary investigation by the Plum Creek Timber Co. has found that a “catastrophic bearing failure” on a raw material belt line caused Tuesday’s explosion at the company’s Columbia Falls’ medium density fiberboard plant, company officials tell the Beacon.

According to spokesperson Kate Tate, the bearing failure on the belt line ignited raw wood fibers and the belt itself. The fire then spread to insulation on a duct pipe above the line, which ignited wood fibers inside the pipe and caused a series of explosions. Tate said company officials would continue their investigation next week.