It was a sad day when the last train rolled through Livingston, Montana, in 1985. The Northern Pacific Railroad had pretty much built the entire town to its liking back in the early 1880s. A hundred years later, the railroad industry was on its heels, closing the repair yards, shrinking the local workforce, and sending the tiny, windswept town of Livingston into a decade-long funk.
The town, and its schools, might still be in that funk today were it not for tourism, the savior of so many once-fading rural towns. But even as the town rose from its ashes, the students of Livingston's lone high school, Park High, have battled against an inferiority complex. Why? Part of it was likely due to generational poverty and substance abuse in the community that remained after the railroad left. As the town's residents are all too aware, Livingston is the seat of the county with the highest suicide rate in Montana—the state with the nation's highest rate.
"We've been fighting a...
Source: This Montana Town Gave Its Children A Fighting Chance Through Strength
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