The Montana Department of Environmental Quality is leading an archeological study to map where a community lived and worked as part of an effort to help clean up railroad industry contamination, repurpose the property, and preserve its history.
The small town of Harlowton has a rich history, having served for decades as the home of a community of Japanese immigrants. The Milwaukee Railroad Company offered stable employment in Harlowton until the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, when the U.S. forcibly imprisoned people of Japanese descent. Stories of these families were recently revived as part of an ongoing DEQ cleanup project focused on the old railroad facilities that severely contaminated the surrounding environment. Harlowton inherited the site following the railroad’s bankruptcy, and it has since deteriorated into industrial ruins.
DEQ’s Brownfields program has stepped in to help rehabilitate the property using federal grant dollars in hopes of transforming it into usable land benefiting the community. Redevelopment plans call for a railroad history museum, an amphitheater, hiking trails, and a day-use recreational site.
Learn more about this project here.
