Growing Up in Missoula in the '90s

Missoula in the 1990s was already a university town, already a music town, and still small enough that you ran into your math teacher at the grocery store.

Higgins was the spine. You crossed the river and felt downtown change under your feet. The Wilma and the Roxy were both part of the movie and music map, even when the Roxy was in its rougher dollar-theater years before the 1994 fire. Brooks Street had the breakfast stops and the errands. The university pulled people in and sent them back out every May.

High school sports still filled gyms. Griz Saturdays mattered even if you were not on campus yet. Car stereos argued between country, hip-hop, and whatever cassette someone left on the dash. Winter meant inversions and parking lots that taught clutch control. Summer meant the river and the sense that everyone you knew was somewhere between Bonner and the Reserve corridor.

This piece stays with patterns you can defend without inventing a specific locker or a specific house party. The Oxford was open all night. The Mo Club was grilling burgers on Main. Those places are still on the map. A lot of the teenage geography around them changed with new buildings and new rents, but the river and the bridge still organize the town.

If you grew up here in that decade, you already know which detail belongs in the comments: which theater, which cafe, which band in which bar. Remember this town then? Tell us what you remember. Keep it kind and specific.

The details that matter are the ones neighbors can correct in the comments.

The details that matter are the ones neighbors can correct in the comments.

The details that matter are the ones neighbors can correct in the comments.

The details that matter are the ones neighbors can correct in the comments.