Welcome to Missoula. The links below will take you on a tour through all that Missoula offers and celebrate what makes this place and community unique. Missoula is well-known for its mystique with a diverse culture that speaks to the heart of Montana. We invite you to join with us to preserve the core values that make our community what it is today, because for all of us, ‘it matters how we LIVE MISSOULA!”
Growing a Missoula to Treasure
by Mae Hassman, CEO - Missoula Organization of REALTORS®
October, 2007
On the second Sunday in August, people in Missoula had their choice of going to the demolition derby at the Fairgrounds or hearing the Missoula Symphony at Caras Park. For those at the park, the music competed briefly with the rumble of motorcycles crossing Higgins Bridge. In just a few week's time after the symphony, Caras Park tent was the scene of a reggae concert and Governor Schweitzer reading a book about his dog, Jag. The backdrop for that event was a country singer entertaining patrons at the Clark Fork Market under the Higgins Bridge. Up the street, the People's Market was going on as usual in a street blocked off next to the Missoula Art Museum. It is quintessential Missoula, a community often identified with and proud of its diversity.
Diversity doesn't grow and thrive without tolerance. Perhaps because Missoula grew up with the University, or perhaps because, as a community we embraced the 'live and let live' code of the West, Missoula is as often identified with its tolerance as much as with its diversity. It’s not unusual to hear people say, “Only in Missoula!” as they encounter something new. As a community, we are offended—even outraged--when we learn that someone has broken that social agreement of tolerance that we have with each other.
Missoula is changing from a timber town to a cosmopolitan small city and that change brings with it ever-increasing diversity--politically, demographically, ethnically, culturally…the list goes on. This diversity enriches us as a community and opens up a wealth of new experiences and opportunities. It also reminds us that it is tolerance that will allow us to share in those new experiences and shape our evolving collective identity. We don't all have to like the symphony, the reggae, the rumble, or the reading, but it is incumbent on all of us to be tolerant of those who do. In the face of both change and growing diversity, tolerance is the one constant which will help ensure that we continue growing a Missoula to treasure.
