Longtime Missoulians remember the Missoula Independent, our town’s free alternative weekly newspaper between 1991 and 2018. But in the five years since it was shuttered, the stream of people moving into Missoula has created large pockets of coffeeshop and brewery-goers (not to mention roof-top cocktail sippers) with no memory of those red newspaper boxes on Missoula’s sidewalks brimming with local stories and events.

And it’s not just newcomers.