Missoula’s New Silver Park to Preserve the Past

By Kyle Lehman, 4-22-08

	Caption: A shelter to be built on the former Champion Sawmill site, designed by Jeremy Bonin of New Hampshire as part of a national design competition. "The fluidness of this design echoes the mountains of Montana," one of the judges said. To see the other winning designs, click here.

When Missoula’s former Champion Sawmill site is transformed into the mixed-use Old Sawmill District (a brownfield redevelopment), the city will have a new 14.5-acre park along the Clark Fork River, Silver Park.

The park will preserve the site’s former life in several new installations to be placed along the park’s riverfront trail, offering walkers shelter from the elements. And their construction this fall will give citizens a chance to take part in the art of timber framing. 

“We will find meaningful work for everyone that walks down there and asks what they can do,” said Joel McCarty of the Timber Framers Guild during a presentation to City Council Monday night.

Jennifer Anthony of Missoula’s Fearless Engineers helped develop the project and said that using salvaged materials will be an integral part of the construction. The three pedestrian shelters, chosen from a national design competition, and a larger pavilion will be constructed from timbers salvaged from the site’s old mill buildings and sunken logs pulled from behind the Bonner Dam decades after loggers sent them downstream. 

Members of the Timber Framers Guild will provide instruction for the 30 community volunteers needed for construction. For members of the Guild, the process is about more than just the finished structures; it’s about engaging and inspiring a community with their project.

Starting September 22, the Guild will run a five-day workshop at the Missoula Osprey baseball stadium that is free and open to the public. Curtis Milton, who is on the Board of Directors for the Guild, thinks that about 40 precent of the cutting and fitting of timbers will be done in Missoula, allowing the community to observe the progress and become involved in the work.

“You can know nothing about it and show up and learn,” he said.

The Timber Framers Guild is a non-profit organization responsible for constructing community-service projects around the world. Members stay in the community and work with citizens on projects ranging from bridges to barns.

“What we’re about is the power of collective action,” said McCarty. “(Timber framing) is the original incarnation of the idea that many hands make light work.”

Missoula resident Geoff Badenoch helped organize the project and calls timber framing one of the oldest, longest-lasting and most beautiful construction practices in use today. The technique relies solely on intricate joints and wooden pegs to connect the structural beams. For Badenoch, the entire process is valuable, from the efforts of volunteers to the finished product, which will serve as an important addition to Missoula’s Ron MacDonald trail system.