Building on soil in Big Sandy

Quinn’s safflowers were far enough along that they had bloomed and were forming seeds before the grasshoppers got to them. (Jason Thompson/MTFP)

Seth Goodman and Chad Fasteson drive by the research plot. Quinn leases much of the family’s 4,000 acres to Goodman and Fasteson, who are farming it organically. (Jason Thompson/MTFP)

Big Sandy librarian Darlene Cline started a seed library in 2019, and provided free seeds to more than 40 local gardeners this past spring. (Jason Thompson/MTFP)

Outside of Pep’s Bar, Cafe and Lanes, a mural captures the spirit of Big Sandy: Seven red combines line up in a wheat field at sunrise, ready to harvest a local farmer’s crops after he was diagnosed with cancer. (Jason Thompson/MTFP)

By the late 1970s, many local Big Sandy businesses had shuttered and residents had moved away, pushed out by an industrial agriculture system that essentially exported wealth alongside commodities. Today, five grain elevators sit empty along a railroad spur that’s now used to store train cars, and the 20 or so jobs the elevators supported are gone. Local farmers selling into commodity markets now haul their grain to centralized elevators in Fort Benton, Rudyard, Chester or Great Falls, 35 to 80 miles away. (Jason Thompson/MTFP)