First Tourist at Waterpark

Butte has  been  economically  depressed since  the  mid  70's, when the  last  of the mining operation crawled  to  a  halt. For decades, the oft-expressed  hope was that "those good  mining  jobs  will come back".  Alas, with the  rapidly dropping price  of  the  minerals mined,  and cheaper  available in South  America,  they  never  did. The population  has been steadily decreasing, decade by  decade. In 1970 the population  was  around  43 K.  Currently,  in the city  limits, it's around 25K.

There was  and is  no  alternate  work  comparable to the  mining  jobs. The  largest employers are  the community hospital, a level 2 that has  to  ship  out  open chest  surgery. The  small  University  is  next, after  that  come  walmark and the soon to  close kmart. The  one mall has lost almost  all  it's  stories. It's  main  visitors are the  geezer walkers in  the morning. The business that  come  that are 'successful' are the  hotels near the  freeway. Restaurants come  and  go,  average life span less than  a year unless the owner  also  owns  the  building. The tourist  industry, which  sustains  many towns  in  Montana  tends  to  pass Butte  by.  The town is not attractive from  the freeway  going  by, the  mine is a raw,  immense scar  on the  earth, and  Bozeman is only 75 miles  away. 

The town  council has  made some  decisions to  help the city over the last decade that  have  the  same  underlying belief: If  you  build  it, they will come." 

The  airport  has recently  been re-built, an  attractive structure  around  the  same size  as the one next  to it, which  will be  torn down.  We have one airline, with two flights in and  out a day. They  have no interest  if  expanding their schedule, the  planes are frequently less  than  full.  After  they built the  new  structure they  asked the  other  airlines  if they  were  interested in flying to Butte.  The answer from  all was no.  There just isn't the business.  It's only an hour  to the Bozeman airport, where one can fly to several major cities, including  Chicago. Butte's  only flight  goes  to  Salt Lake City. 

Then  there are the  new  bike lanes  being put on the  existing  street, narrowing  the lanes from  two each way  on  the  few  busy  streets to  one.  I see maybe 5-10 bicyclists a  month. And  this is during  the  2  months of summer.

Now  we  have  the new  waterpark, opening  end of  this  month.  Constructed cost  was 8.7 million, it has a wandering 'river', slides, etc.......quite  attractive,  actually. And, it's not covered. It's outside. We  had a  goodly  snow  storm last  week, this morning it  was  41,  and scheduled  to  get up to  55  today.  Estimated  time  it will be open  is two to  three  months a  year. And most years we get our  first  snow in  Sept., last in  June.

We did  have a first  visitor to the Waterpark, even  though  it  hasn't  opened yet. 

Paper didn't  say if it paid the  entrance fee.