10th Avenue South: One Street's Story

10th Avenue South: One street's story. (Great Falls Tribune, 1/23/2011)

Excerpt: Now I have almost 300 trees along my length — though many of them are but forked sticks. Be patient and I'll look more like a real forest than a forest of signs.

I'm 4 1/2 miles (79 football fields) from the Warden Bridge to 57th Street South, where I give way to prairie again.

That bridge made all the difference in taking me from a sleepy residential street to, at one time, the state's busiest commercial artery.

The 1951 bridge over the Missouri River — named for Tribune publisher and Montana Department of Transportation bigwig O.S. Warden — opened my lanes to traffic passing through town.

With the interstate system and postwar prosperity putting a car in every driveway, stores with big parking lots gained appeal.

In 1956, I was widened to four lanes. After decades of debate and millions of dollars, only in the last year did the widening efforts finish, stretching my six lanes clear to the hospital.