No, no, I'm not blogging about my on air radio work. They're the conditions in the Somers, Montana logging camps we'll be reading about tonight (Tuesday) during Montana History up at the Marias Heritage Center here in Shelby. You think YOU have troubles...you ain't seen nothin' yet compared to the logging camps in the Flathead Valley during the heyday of Somers! Rough, crudely-built shacks served as bunk houses for the working crews. A dozen or so men slept in each bunk house, often infested with bedbugs & sometimes lice. These bunk houses were dirty, unsanitary, & overcrowded, the men being packed into double bunks, built in 2 tiers, one above the other. No provision was made for ventilation. There were no baths in the camps, neither were there any facilities for washing clothes. There was NO sanitary method of disposing of garbage in the camps. It was usually dumped just outside the cookhouse door. In hot weather these garbage piles rotted & stank & formed an ideal breeding place for swarms of flies. The upside of all this is that I'll be reading the book, "Somers, Montana: The Company Town" AFTER the Heritage Center residents have digested their evening meal & NOT before. See you this evening at 6 o'clock SHARP for more Montana History at the Heritage.

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