Bighorn Trout Shop Reconstruction Nears Completion, Fort Smith Recovers

May 10, 2007 By: Marshall Cutchin

” For some residents of this town of 122 people on the Crow Indian Reservation a 40-minute drive from the Little Bighorn battlefield, a cloud passed over the future last August.” Maurice Possley writes in today’s Chicago Tribune about the fire that almost sucked the life out of Fort Smith, Montana, a town central to the Bighorn River fishing community. Bighorn Trout Shop and Lodge owners Hale Harris and Steve Hilbers recently re-opened their business, where last fall’s fire destroyed several lodging rooms, the dining room and kitchen, and the shop itself.