Hardin jail deal raises questions

MATTHEW BROWN Associated Press Writer BILLINGS

The Two Rivers Detention Center was promoted as the largest economic development project in decades in the small town of Hardin when the jail was built two years ago. But it has been vacant ever since. City officials have searched from Vermont to Alaska for inmate contracts to fill the jail, only to be turned down at every turn and see the bonds that financed its construction fall into default. They even floated the idea of housing prisoners from Guantanamo Bay at the jail. S o wh e n Ha r d i n o f f i c i a l s announced this week that they had...