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 G…

October 31, 2021