Rugged mountain town celebrates

Local politicians and sheriffs turned out too, eager to be in the same rustic center with more than 10 percent of this mountain town's total population.
This was the essence of community celebration.

More than 120 residents gathered Saturday morning at the Gail D. Cox Community Center at Big Falls Lodge to celebrate the one year anniversary of its opening. Named after a former resident who died in 2005 after a 15-year bout with breast cancer, the center is a refurbished restaurant turned communal gathering place, thanks to Cox's bequeathed estate and the grit and sweat of the majority of Forest Falls' roughly 1,100 denizens.

Outside, a dusting of May snow frosted the ground and fog hung amid the tall pines. Inside, the glass-encased fire place and sense of celebration warmed the air.

photo by R. Rogers

"We really came together," said Tom McIntosh, a Forest Falls real-estate agent and president of Valley of the Falls Community Center Inc., the community nonprofit that runs the center.

McIntosh said the center's creation - and its nightly use for everything from exercise classes to weddings - bridges the best of this mountain community's character traits. Ruggedly individualistic yet tight-knit, McIntosh said even he is surprised at how readily residents have embraced the concept of a shared center.

"We are a community of individual, independent people, but we can band together behind a common purpose," McIntosh said.

More than 71 plaques adorne the Knotty Pine walls, honoring the people who donated $2,500 in cash, materials or labor to the center's rebuilding. Hundreds more chipped in what they could, McIntosh said.

photo by R. Rogers

County Supervisor Dennis Hansberger was on hand, chatting with locals.

"This is indicative of the spirit of self-reliance that strengthens this community," Hansberger said. "When they want something done, they do it."
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