Jefferson County may yet get a cowboy-related hall of fame.
Board members of the Billings-based Montana Pro Rodeo Hall and Wall of Fame came to Boulder Friday, April 5 to meet with Jefferson County officials and discuss taking part in an economic development project proposed to be sited near the I-15 interchange.
The project has been evolving out of the county’s unsuccessful bid to locate the Montana Cowboy Hall of Fame here.
Friday’s wasn’t the first such discussion between the organization and the county, but it was the first time the organization sent people to Boulder for a site tour. The group also visited Jefferson County Recreation Park, where the county might build a related indoor arena.
“If this thing’s built, they will come,” board member Jay Linderman said in a meeting after the tour.
The proposed development is still in its very early stages. In preparing its bid to attract the Montana Cowboy Hall of Fame, the county had developed shoot-for-the-moon architectural concepts and a preliminary feasibility study.
Many questions remain, however, and many were raised in Friday’s meeting. These included the project’s anticipated timeline and funding sources.
Commissioner Leonard Wortman said he “could see something happening in 2021, probably,” noting that county residents would have to vote whether to allow the county to take on any significant debt to partly finance the project — a vote he said can’t happen sooner than June 2020.
Craig Erickson, a grant writer and grant administrator with county contractor Great West Engineering, told the visiting board members that the county is looking to have produced a preliminary architectural report and certified economic feasibility study to examine the site’s development potential and assess the related costs.
Those items are also required for the county to apply for any state and federal funding and to show that the county has “really thought this thing through,” he said, adding that “the county has put together a pretty top-flight group of people to put this all together.”
Erickson said that potential funding sources may include the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Montana Department of Commerce.
“[Speaking] as a grant writer, from a funding perspective this [project] is viable,” he said, acknowledging that “it will take a lot of work.”
Erickson also said that the project is a “pretty big apple to take in one bite,” a reference to another talking point of possibly developing the project in phases.
“What’s really going to get our support is when you get the money,” said board member Brent Jordan.
Despite the project being in its early stages, the group spoke with enthusiasm as it considered its potential. Jordan said he thought an onsite RV park would be “very smart” to include; Linderman, talking about donated rodeo memorabilia, said “there’s a buttload of stuff out there looking for someplace to go”; Wortman discussed having a gift shop dealing exclusively in Made in Montana — even Made in Jefferson County — goods.
“The biggest thing we need to take out of this today is a letter of support and play everything else by ear as it fol lows through,” said Bill Williams, president of the Montana Pro Rodeo Hall and Wall of Fame.
The board members left saying they would propose at the next board meeting that the organization provide the county with that letter of support, a noncommittal gesture county officials hope will help boost the project’s momentum and encourage the support of the public and potential funders.
The county hopes to get other organizations interested in signing onto the project, which has been described as some variation of a Montana Western Legacy Center. In addition to the Montana Pro Rodeo Hall and Wall of Fame, the county has spoken with and piqued the curiosity of the Montana Historical Society, the Museum of the Rockies and the Women’s Professional Rodeo Association, Wortman has said.
Wortman has also said that the county might model its management of the site after the Museum of the Rockies, a nonpofit based in Bozeman.
As far as next steps locally are concerned, the commissioners indicated at their March 26 meeting the need to get the public more involved in discussions about the proposed development.
Wortman proposed that day that they schedule some sort of public hearing on April 30.
