Again.
Like the last three times, they're essentially moving across the street. You can do that in a company town.
Soon, the house Jim and Chris lived in since 2001 will be gone as well.
The letter came on July 18 from the powers that be at Stimson Lumber Co. It said the 16 company houses closest to the stud mill - on the mill side of Highway 200 - were being abandoned so the east log yard could be expanded.
The eviction notice said you had to be gone by Sept. 1.
Not long before, Jim Sparks had gotten an eviction notice of another sort. His job at Stimson's plywood plant, a job he'd held since 1981, was disappearing, too.
For people like Sparks, it's really a way of life that's disappearing - an age when a man could go to work for a timber company and expect to spend his life there.
No more.
“Well, there's lot of reasons for it, some of them real and some them made up, but the fact is, it's over,” Sparks said. “It's time to do something different. We're going to stay here while we can, but when the time comes, we're going to get our own place, a place that's ours and where nobody can tell us when to move.”
But today is time to move. Jim and Chris lived in No. 5, one of the houses on White House Lane, which dead-ends at the mill. The “White House,” which houses company offices, sits across the street and will remain.
The other houses, places that used to be home to mill managers and other brass, are goners.
“They've told us not to bother cleaning up or anything, and to take whatever we want, because they're going to take them down with a dozer,” Sparks said.
The houses along the highway's north side are done for as well. They're smaller, the homes of regular millworkers like Ray Mavity.
He moved out a while back, heading for the Bitterroot Valley. Others have moved on, too, but many have moved across the highway, to other company houses.
That's what Jim and Chris are doing. They're now trying to cram a life's worth of possessions into the smaller confines of No. 52, a house on the south side of Highway 200.
“This house, it's smaller, which is fine because the kids are gone, and the backyard is nicer, too,” Sparks said. “We've got to throw some stuff out, but I guess that's all right. Never any harm in getting rid of the old stuff, I guess.”
True enough when it comes to an old grill, perhaps, maybe an ancient pair of work boots.
Different, though, when it's all you've ever known.
“I'll tell you, I didn't ever really plan to go back to school,” Sparks said. “But that's what I'm doing.”
Sparks is taking advantage of his severance package, which allows him to draw unemployment and go to school for job training for two years. At 48, he's been brushing up on math and English at the Dickenson Adult Learning Center, and he'll soon be training at Salish Kootenai College to be a heavy equipment operator.
“It's a year's program, and I should be able to get a job after that,” he said. “I just want something stable so I feel like I've got a job I know I'll have for a while.”
The house is another story. Sparks is happy to have another place in Bonner, but he has his doubts about how long he'll be able to stay. So does his friend Neil Blade, who's helping Sparks move on this weekday.
“There's so many rumors swirling about regarding the houses and the mill itself,” Blade said. “It's sort of an act of faith to keep going out here.”
Sparks sized up the rental market in Missoula before opting for another company house. It didn't take long to see that Bonner was the better choice, even if the future is murky.
“In Missoula, you're going to pay twice as much and you're going to get something a lot smaller,” he said. “I've lived in these houses for almost 15 years, so I know what I'm getting. And you can't beat the rent.”
The houses were built in the early years of the last century by the Anaconda Co. They've now housed generations of millworkers, and those years have taken their toll. Although the houses are managed by a property management company, some of them are in pretty tough shape.
“Well, the outside isn't much to look at, but when we've needed things done on the inside, they've gotten to it pretty quickly,” said Amanda Henderson, who lives with her husband Michael in a company house on the south side of the highway. “We got new insulation last year, and that's really helped.”
As Sparks said, “If the wind blows somewhere, you can feel it in these houses.”
On the other hand, No. 5 had steam heat generated by the mill's boiler, and that made for a warm winter.
“I tell you what, you could run around in your underwear in January,” Sparks said. “But if the boiler at the mill went down, look out.”
On a recent day, as Sparks and Blade hefted another load onto a truck, the other houses sat mostly abandoned. Some of them already have the ornate windows ripped out, as people are taking anything of value before the bulldozers come.
“It's a shame to see this stuff go like this,” Blade said. “It seems like it's something worth saving. You wonder if it wouldn't be worthwhile to jack one of these places up and take it somewhere.”
Maybe. Maybe not. Some of the houses look worse than others, and some seem less substantial than the next stiff breeze. The decks are rotting, the walls no longer plumb.
On one of the condemned houses, there's an old note from a woman named Crystal: “This house looks like it might be up for rent. If not, sorry to bother you. If so, please call me.”
The houses all have two numbers on them these days. The old numbers are the ones assigned decades ago by the company. The newer numbers are actual road addresses, required so that 9-1-1 can direct emergency responders to the right place.
The last house going east is No. 71. It's shielded from the highway by hardwoods. It still has a welcome sign on the door, and another that says “Support our Troops.”
There's a hose in the yard and the grass is cut, but life has moved on.
Next door, at No. 69, the sky-blue paint peels away to the gray of a passing cloud. There's an old grill out back, a crumbling basketball hoop, a soccer ball in a cardboard box.
The whole little neighborhood feels like a town just waiting for ghosts to move in. But they won't get the chance. The bulldozers will be here too soon.
Before long, the houses will be scraped away, replaced by logs that will feed the sawmill. Blade said it's much easier to haul logs from the east yard, and word is the south log yard may already be sold.
“Sometimes I feel like there's an obvious reason I'm doing something, and then there's another reason I'm not entitled to find out,” said Blade, who has done millwork since 1973. “In the end, I just move the logs, though.”
Neil helps Jim load an elk head onto the flatbed, then they make sure the dining room table won't fall off the truck when Jim drives over the curb.
The truck rumbles into action, Jim at the wheel, Neil riding in the back, his hand on the elk mount.
They drive maybe 200 yards from No. 5, cross the highway and start unloading at No. 52.
Reporter Michael Moore can be reached at 523-5252 or at mmoore@missoulian.com
Coming Monday
For a look at the history of Bonner's “company houses,” check out reporter Kim Briggeman's story in the Hometowns section of Monday's Missoulian.
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