Townsend's Broadway ...

When it comes to Montana topics, I certainly have my favorites ... but even so, I strive for some geographic diversity in my blog posts. Every now and then I go looking for a photo of a town I haven't mentioned here before, like this one: a postcard image of Townsend, taken about fifty years ago. You're looking east on Broadway Street, out towards the Big Belt Mountains.

The editors of the great WPA guidebook to Montana were usually a fairly laudatory bunch, but they used the words "drab" and "neglected" to describe Townsend. That always seemed a little mean to me, but honestly, they weren't really far off the mark. The view in this photo is anything but drab, though, thanks to the now-classic cars on the street, and all those great advertising signs. I love that stuff.