Moving to Great Falls Summer 2007 (black, color)

[greaterfalls]

My story: raised as a military brat, and then joined the Air Force, so I have lived in many, many places in my 40 years...and once I arrived in Great Falls over 4 years ago, I finally found a place to call HOME. It is a wonderful community - great for kids - and believe me, the absolute friendliest people that I have ever encountered, bar none. Nothing fancy about Great Falls - it is a very simple, honest, direct place, with tons of natural beauty (scenery, parks, etc), plenty of different neighborhoods for all types, centrally located, and such.

Come on up - you'll love it! Any questions, e-mail me (or check out www.greaterfalls.com) (broken link).

[GiftShoppeGuy]

Originally Posted by greaterfalls

My story: raised as a military brat, and then joined the Air Force, so I have lived in many, many places in my 40 years...and once I arrived in Great Falls over 4 years ago, I finally found a place to call HOME. It is a wonderful community - great for kids - and believe me, the absolute friendliest people that I have ever encountered, bar none. Nothing fancy about Great Falls - it is a very simple, honest, direct place, with tons of natural beauty (scenery, parks, etc), plenty of different neighborhoods for all types, centrally located, and such.

Come on up - you'll love it! Any questions, e-mail me (or check out www.greaterfalls.com).

Oh and by the way.......

Your Goose Crossing photo taken on River Drive is "Priceless".....

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And, if you guys ever get the chance...... take a look at GreaterFalls' photo gallery.........

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We've been working quite a bit out at Malmstrom (phase 5 housing) and I'm one that's glad the private security firm is gone.....
There just isn't any feeling in the world greater than watching the Airmen salute the officers as they arrive in the morning at the gate.....
Now, if we can just get things to settle down, so the boys can get out of their combat uniforms and back into their dress uniforms.

[charnaa]

I grew up North of town and was gone after highschool. Now after 25 years of living lots of places around the country and a few foreign countries I can only say. HELL yes I'm glad to be back!

But hey, once Montana is in your blood it's there for good. I lived in some pretty "hip" areas... Ashville, NC, Mexico Beach, FL, Marathon (the keys) FL, San Juan PR... and I did enjoy living in those places.. but the people, people, people all the people. If you like the outdoors, and aren't a passionate consumer and you have kids.... Great Falls is hard to beat. As far as the drug scene... it's there... just know where your kids are and who they hang out with.... always.... That's true anywhere.

[Reziac]

I went to Lincoln Elementary, East Junior High School (what's with this "middle school" crap? and GFHS, graduated in 1972, and frankly I don't think I've ever come across any more broadly-/better-educated group of people.

This made me think of the nice neighbourhoods these schools are in, and here's an odd thing, I picture GFHS in early winter, when the trees are bare and the snow clouds are just coming in.

[farmbound]

This is part of a posting from Missoula and I hope someone can help. I'm lookin to move to Montana some time in the next two years and needed some constructive advise. I'm finishing nursing school and my family (husband and son) wants to move outa Va beach. I grew up on a big horse farm on the skirts of Va beach and it has since been turned into a housing development. I have read everyones postings about outsiders, raising property taxes with high home sales, newcomers fencing the lands you've hunted for generations and the overall upset feelings of others moving into town. I to have been "pushed out" and want to resume a simple life of working, eating, and enjoying the stars. I lived here my whole life and watched "outsiders" take my land and the horses. Montana seems to have the good ol boy feel and peace of mind I remember. Can you give me a realistic feel for the town of Missoula (politics, school, living and everyday life). We are loyal people and help our neighbors. By and By our neighbors got pushed out too. We're left to fan the flames of gangs, crack and hoodlems. I miss the horses and want my son to grow up grounded in nature. Can anyone help? Population is the main thing pushing us out. We have 436,000 people versus Missoula 60,000 people. We want to find a place were the other neighbor give to the community instead of hinder it. I can't let my child ride his bike for fear someone will kidnap him. Security lock down is in effect for fear of burglery. You get a better job and go to school for a better trade, so you can live in a richer neighborhood to protect your child. Keeping up with the Jones's gets harder and harder and we want to scale back. We have seen Bozeman housing is outragous expecially for property and Missoula postings have made me rethink that area. I crossed your postings about children being accepted in Great Falls and got excited. Can anyone help us?

[bigskylaw]

I'll jump in here. First, I am not going to knock Missoula and Bozeman. They are generally nice cities and for someone moving from a much larger area, they might be preferable as having more hustle and bustle.

I am born and raised in Great Falls. I like it here. We have seen some growth lately, although it is not the explosive, boomtown growth you see in Missoula, Bozeman, and Kalispell. Great Falls is still a Montana community.

While the realtors have done a good job of pushing the housing prices up, it's still much cheaper than the other parts of the state. For example, we have a 'boatable' river here, the Missouri. You can have a home on the river for half a million dollars. That's a lot of money, but usually waterfront in town is three times that. Two hundred to two fifty will get you some acres and a decent house, I would guess.

Our medical community is one area where we really are seeing a boom. There have been three new buildings constructed in the last couple years, and our hospital is building a $75,000,000.00 addition right now. Contact Benefis Hospital or the Great Falls Clinic regarding employment.

We have our share of problems like anyone else. We have a meth problem, although like everywhere else, it is on the decline. We have a lower class too. The difference is that you are likely to see greater friendships across 'class barriers.' In other words, even though I am a lawyer, I remain friends with many of my high school classmates who didn't go to college. I don't care if they drive nice cars; they're good guys.

It might not be for you, but I like it here. It is a good clean place to raise a family.

[farmbound]

to bigskylaw
Thanks for the info. We are looking for a family place and a place to "call home". I am pleased to see you stayed in your home town. That was something the others have said was a problem when families move out here. They say the parents love it and raise thier kids but then the children have to move out of state for employment. Can you tell me if there is property in the foot hills. I don't know much about Great Falls. We would love to find 10-20 acres yet still be within 30-45 min drive of medical centers?

[AKS]

Concerning "Dead Of Winter" It usally stays Summer like untill around mid Oct. then cools down, The coldest often "but not always" is the first week of Jan.,and last about a week or too, but hey LOL weather changes in a bleak of an eye , then well it's bleak for a few months but isn't it always in the north.

Originally Posted by leavingcalifornia

We will be moving to Great Falls from California in the summer of 2007. We've checked out all the basics: homes, schools, jobs, taxes, weather, etc., but what is your overall opinion of the Great Falls community? Any insight would be extremely helpful. And just how bad are the winters? Are we talking snowed-in days or are they pretty mild?

[Reziac]

I've been snowed in for a day or two when I lived near Belgrade/Bozeman, usually happened once every 3rd or 4th winter. In Great Falls I can only recall one time when we couldn't get around, and that was during the Great Winter of 1968-69.

Of course, having grown up in MT, my idea of "snowed in" means "even the heavy plows can't move". A foot of snow or even a blizzard meant nothing, I'd just go right on about my business. If MT shut down for what California calls a "snow day", the whole state would grind to a halt every winter. You just don't do that when it's part of your regular climate.

[jennie123]

great falls is a horrible place to live. i have been severely depressed the whole time i have been here. i have been here 10 months, with 3 years + more to go. there's nothing to do, hardly anything worth calling "shopping", no place to hang out, nowhere to go. this place is full of casinos and places to drown your depression in alcohol. gf is reeeeally ghetto. if you're into health food forget it, there's only one health food store here and it's a monopoly, they charge whatever they want. the same goes for all the other health foods stores in the other major MT towns. this place is backward. people are ridiculous backward rejects of society. most of them are small time cheap losers living in horrible poverty, that will nickel and dime you to death at garage sales. outside of the cities, the scenery is very pretty, but that's all there's to MT, the outdoors. cities are very very disorganized, underfunded and very behind in terms of progression. you should see what they do to melt the snow here on warm days, you'll find out when you get here, it's jaw dropping. gf is a place you want to hide out from the real world in isolation, if you are in the witness protection program. people here are also very very racist, this is something not everyone will tell you. if you are not white here, you are not right. when people say it's a good clean place to raise a family, it means most people here are white folk. i would not raise a family here, this place is full of trashy heavily fluoridated, dumbed down people that eat lots of junk food. right outside the county limits as you head out west, there's a creepy makeshift civil war era mining town called sun river rangers. they have the confederate flag up. to make a long story short, they are not there to shoot a film, catch my drift? a phillipino lady that lives in fox farm, said that she got a handwritten note posted on her front door telling her to get back to china. the meth issue in this town is a very big problem. i don't blame 'em, this place is worth the escape, at any cost some days. (please don't do meth). there's this oil refinery right in the middle of town that stinks up the whole town and badly pollutes the air. it smells like sewage sometimes. i was gagged out of my apartment once and had to drive out of town for several hours in the middle of the night. the refinery is located in the middle of town by Walmart. the air is very bad here, especially along the one ways and 10th Ave S, which is MT's busiest stretch of road, right here in GF, nice huh. The water is heavily fluoridated in parts of this town. for the most part it stays under 1 ppm. if you must move out here and you must buy a house, buy out of town, or just go for on base housing. rent can be cheap here, but you will get what you paid for. if you want housing quality equal to what you would get on base, you need to spend much more than the bah rate here. if you can cancel your plans to come here, i would do it in a heartbeat. people that feel comfortable here have grown up here and continue to have family and acquaintaces here. if you don't, and you don't like the outdoors, you are pretty much screwed. be very careful about coming to this town. there have been a lot of divorces and a lot of families have been broken due to the negative energy of this place. a lot of military wives get sick here. many of them develop serious mental issues. many of them are not able to find good work, so they don't work, which adds to the problem of being here. GF has very very bad energy, it's pretty much cursed. Visiting this place is not enough to know what it will be like. you have to stay here for at least a couple months to take in the whole picture of this place. this is not a city for the progressive type of person. people here don't even recycle out of their homes, get it? it gets very cold here too in the winters. last december, we got pretty much a whole month of non stop minus zero weather and piles and piles of snow. it was dreadful. streets were badly plowed. they don't plow the side streets at all. i was stuck at home for many days alone. an old neighbor of mine told me that some years, it snows every month of the year, and sometimes you can't tell when last year's winter ended and when the current year's winter started. i too heard that it got to minus 80F (eighty) a few winters ago, i couldn't believe it. last december we got about two or three weeks of below zero weather, the coldest night i remember was about -30F. it was horrific and very scary. i lived in MN, and this winter here was way worse than anything i ever saw in MN. if you plan to move out here be extremely careful, you will either love it or hate it. there's not much in between.