What is Barnstorming Montana?
July 24, 2003 in Helena, Montana will mark the beginning of a trip unlike any I have attempted, a journey in search of the spirit and the song of the last best place. Barnstorming Montana is a tour, a film, and a website: www.BarnstormingMontana.com. On a long drive home from the 2002 Rocky Mountain Ragtime Festival, I stopped in Ingomar, Montana, a once shimmering and potent hub of rural activity, years ago the sheep-shearing capital of Eastern Montana, perhaps of the whole Northern Plains. Now at least half of the buildings are vacant. Many structures stoop against the relentless waves of air, some leaning at angles, doors fallen, others sinking into the prairie gumbo. After passing the notorious (and still open) Jersey Lilly Saloon I found my way to the porch of the old school house, a national historic building which has morphed quite naturally into a bunkhouse. Soothed by a cool breeze, which in July signals the approach of a storm, I sat on the concrete steps and beheld a sky so
