Philipsburg Brewing Company on the corner of 101 W. Broadway, boasts a restored metal front. Drone photo credit: Jordan Lefler. Documentary still shot. 

Sweeping Film Charms, Captures P-Burg Renaissance

Residents and cast snagged sneak peeks of filmmaker Jim Jenner’s seamless, professional documentary highlighting the astounding genesis of teensy-weensy Philipsburg, Montana earlier this year in their beloved little town.

Finally, this week “Saving the Burg: A Story of Love, Sweat and Beers” debuts on Montana PBS Thursday, April 18 for the general public. More air dates follow on April 21 and 22.

“Saving the Burg” portrays the astounding, steady, chronological transformation of Philipsburg – or “P-Burg,” as locals and Montanans call it for short – from a dusty, dried-up mining town of old to a thriving, enticing current-day phoenix that draws tourists hungry for a simple return to small-town life. Even quick weekend visits restore the soul.

Shirley Beck, Sweet Palace and Sapphire Gallery business owner, zones in on the allure and charm of a town brought back to life. Thanks to her, Dale Siegford and at least 17 other business owners, volunteers and sundry townspeople whose consistent effort, teamwork and uncommonly common vision transformed the historic silver mining town into an architectural showpiece – complete with a brewery, a well-known candy shop, an annual concert in a gorgeous outdoor amphitheater that doubles as a pro-size hockey rink in the winter – and so much more.

Sweet Palace, planked right in the center of town at 109 E. Broadway, serves as the appropriate metaphor for cleverly turning lemons – a forgotten old mining town tucked away into Flint Creek Valley and located off the beaten path – into lemonade in the form of architectural restoration and rebirth.

“Did you see the movie, Chocolat? asks savvy Beck in the P-Burg film. “Do you know how that changed that town? That’s what it did (here). People friended each other for no other reason than we have a candy store. We have something that nobody else has. It was a glowing pink thing that just – Poof! – changed the town, just like Chocolat.

Beck, Siegford and a slew of other dedicated P-Burgites responsible for rebuilding the town, founded in 1867, star in Jenner’s chronological film that schools even the most ardent Montana historian.

Aerial view of new outdoor arena created in 2005 in historic Philipsburg, MT. Almost 3000 people attended an August concert in 2016.
The annual car show on Broadway in Philipsburg has become a well attended Summer event.
Cover of U of M Journalism School photo book that captured Philipsburg in the economic dark days in the late 1980’s.
Director Jim Jenner [left] and Jordan Lefler [kneeling] capture reunion moment of Philipsburg native Mary Jo Carstensen with Brian Keller [L] and Todd Goodrich [R] who photographed the town as students in 1987
Director Jim Jenner [left] and Jordan Lefler [far right] capture reunion moment of Philipsburg native Mary Jo Carstensen with Brian Keller [L] and Todd Goodrich [R] who photographed the town as college students in 1987.
Iron worker attaches new balcony on Philipsburg’s oldest brick building, the Kaiser House. “Saving the Burg” captures the efforts that went into restoring dozens of buildings in Philipsburg’s historic downtown.
Drone image of historic Philipsburg which struggled to survive the 1980’s only to emerge as a nationally recognized economic comeback story.
Winninghoff Park Ice Rink and Arena in historic downtown Philipsburg was one of many community projects that helped bring Philipsburg back from the economic brink.
Philipsburg Elementary, the oldest operating school in Montana, was restored thanks to a vote by local citizens to tax themselves for the remodeling costs. The playground to the right was constructed as a community project as well.
Director Jim Jenner was an eyewitness and early investor in the restoration and reinvigoration of Philipsburg. He interviewed 35 other local people to tell the story of “Saving the Burg”.
Todd Goodrich [left] and Brian Keller return to the streets of historic Philipsburg. The two were part of a U of M photo journalism class that spent a week photographing the town in the dark days of 1987. Their recollections are part of “Saving the Burg” a film chronicling the comeback Philipsburg achieved since their first visit. Goodrich is now head photographer for the U of M. Keller, a Deputy Sheriff in Illinois, had not been in Philipsburg for 30 years.
The restored metal fronts of historic buildings in Philipsburg, and the vibrant businesses they now house such as a brewery, hotel and thrift store, are part of the story of “Saving the Burg”. The one hour documentary recounts how a quarter century of individual and community effort brought these once empty buildings back to life.
Candyman Dale Siegford operates an antique taffy wrapper in a scene from “Saving the Burg.” The opening of a candy store in the once struggling mining town was one of many key moments in the comeback of historic Philipsburg.
Community cleanup crew toss old appliance from a shuttered downtown hotel in Philipsburg, MT. The project, which converted the vacant building into a local museum, was one of the early turnaround efforts captured in “Saving the Burg”.
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Broken into aptly-named episodes, the film gives a thorough overview of the mining town’s boom, it’s eventual demise and ghost-town like ambiance. Jenner pays due homage to Montana’s preeminent late poet, Richard Hugo, whose poem, Degrees of Gray in Philipsburg, put the town on the map and in the wider public consciousness leading up to the town’s eventual Renaissance a few decades later. Jenner, a master filmmaker who bought a house in P-Burg in 1991, then moved there permanently in 2003, even includes old 16-millimeter footage of Hugo touring the drab and dreary crumbling town. Read Hugo’s poem here that inspired so many students to write their own “place” poems.

Eventually, a 1987 University of Montana School of Journalism project chronicling a-day-in-the-life photos proved key to attracting the curious, including several former Washington state residents who drove through, caught the P-Burg charm bug, then set down new roots. Many former  Washingtonians, plus local volunteer labor, bankers and home-town returnees comprise the core team that consistently, doggedly pumped money and sweat equity into restoring several architectural gems and opened hip businesses that reflect P-Burg today. They spied the economic possibilities and jumped on them, says Jenner, at heart a fisherman drawn to Montana’s clear streams and rivers.

“There’s kind of an infinity for people who live on the coast to come to the mountains,” said Jenner, who moved from Olympia. “This is kind of a less populated, less frenetic place.”

A $12,500 Greater Montana Foundation grant, plus local matching funds from generous donors, partly paid for the film production. National press in a few magazines and a few prestigious community awards boosted the town’s image and spread the word – rare, indelible ink for isolated, rural Montana.

So much more surrounds the decades-long P-Burg Renaissance. For a complete picture, absorb with awe Jenner’s thorough film that includes perspectives from all angles, including young P-Burg natives who stayed to participate in the revival or who eventually returned to raise their young families in a quiet but thriving burg.

“Now we just have to keep the momentum going,” added Jenner.

The documentary airs on https://www.pbs.org/show/saving-burg/ at the following times: April 18 - 7 p.m.; April 21 - 10 a.m. April 22 - 2 a.m.

Two years in the making, “Saving the Burg: A Story of Love, Sweat & Beers” is available at local Philipsburg retailers and online at www.paccomfilms.com for $20. Proceeds from DVD sales benefit the Philipsburg Arts Fund.

— Renata Birkenbuel, editor@prairiepopulist.org. Photos by Jim Jenner and Anne Pentilla

Updated on April 18.

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