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BNSF presents Havre with heritage award

Local officials and residents were féted Thursday by BNSF Railway as the company presented Havre with an award recognizing its extensive history and connection with the railroad.

Ross Lane of Billings, BNSF regional director of public affairs, said the railroad started recognizing communities with deep ties to the company a few years ago while he presented an award to Havre Mayor Tim Solomon and a check to Boys & Girls Club of the Hi-Line Board Chair Susan Somers.

"We celebrate our past our present and our future," Lane said. "... we understand that being the neighbor of a railroad can be difficult at times, but we also have lots of employees in really a lot of many special communities, and we are glad to be part of your community as well."

He presented Solomon with a scale model of a BNSF locomotive engraved with "2017 BNSF Heritage Award, Havre, Montana," and a check for $10,000 to Somers.

Somers said the money will be used as a match for a grant the city is administering for the club to make improvements to its facilities.

Ross said after the ceremonies that the awards started in 2015, with the first going to Pasco, Washington, and fewer than 10 including Havre presented so far.

"Havre, it's such an obvious choice for us," he said. " ... Havre is really just a key, critical community for us, and we want to make sure we are recognizing that."

And Havre's ties to the railroad are long and deep.

Few people lived in the Bullhook Bottoms valley where the creek Bullhook flows into the Milk River before railroad magnate James J. Hill - for whom Hill County is named - picked the site for a main station on his east-west line from Minneapolis to Seattle.

By 1887 Hill's northern east-west route - the rail line for which Montana's Hi-Line is named - had reached the Milk River area and by 1893 the community that sprang up around his station was incorporated as the City of Havre, named for Le Havre, France, where some prominent local citizens originated.

Most of the people who had lived in Cypress on Big Sandy Creek a few miles west, had moved to the Havre townsite by then. Cypress had supported Fort Assinniboine.

Havre has been a railroad town ever since.

Lane said Havre still is a critically important spot for BNSF, and will be for many years to come

The town is a major stopping point between Chicago and Seattle and is on an ever-busier route, he said.

The shipments of grain have been moving heavier and heavier along the Hi-Line, Lane said.

"We hauled record grain on the line over the last year," he said. "Each month volume is higher than the previous month."

He added that the company has been investing billions on infrastructure in the last few years, and more is coming this year, including $100 million in Montana.

"A lot of that will go straight to the Hi-Line," Lane said.

He said giving Havre the heritage award was an obvious choice.

"It is critical to our operations and we see it as critical to our future operations," he said.

 

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