Sanders County Extension Service
P. O. Box 189
Thompson Falls, Montana 59873-0189
Phone Number (406-) 827-6934
Fax Number (406) 827-4315

Extension Office
 sanders@montana.edu
County Agents: John Halpop
jhalpop@montana.edu
Meghan Phillippi
meghanp@montana.edu

http://www.homepage.montana.edu/~sanders

Profile & Background of Sanders County

Sanders County covers a diverse area. Spanning 130 miles of the lower Clark Fork river valley in Northwest Montana the county consists of forested valleys and mountain ranges on the west end and open grasslands towards the east.
Thompson Falls, the county seat, lies in the west-central portion of the couty. While areas of western Sanders County receive in excess of 36" average annual precipitaion, locations near Niarada and Lonepine may experience less than 10", making them fairly arid. The agricultural and natural resource base of the area follows a similar pattern. Traditional farming and ranching communities occupy the eastern third and a mixed small farm-logging economy is found towards the west.
A population shift from the incorporated cities to rural dwellings occurred in Sanders Co. during the late 1980's and early 90's. While the incorporated cities of Thompson Falls, Plains and Hot Springs lost 10-30 % of their population, the couty as a whole grew by approximately 18% to slightly over 10,000.
The Sanders County Extension office is staffed by one full-time Agricultural/4-H/Community Resource Development agent and one half-time Home Economics/4-H agent. It is further staffed by two job share administrative assistants.

MSU Extension Service
http://extn.msu.montana.edu
Thomas US Congress on the Internet
http://thomas.loc.gov
Washington State Hay Growers Directory
http://pnw-ag.wsu.edu
Invaders Database
http://invader.dbs.umt.edu
Mt. Dept of Agriculture Homepage
http://www.agr.state.mt.us
Mt. office of Research & Analysis
http://rad.dli.state.mt.us
Western Society of Weed Science
http://www.wsweedscience.org
US EPA Pesticide Safety Programs
http://www.epa.gov/pesticides/safety
Montana Weed Control Association
http://www.mtweed.org
Idaho Weed Watchers
http://plantain.ag.uidaho.edu
Nutrition and Food Safety
http://www.foodsafety.org/consumer.htm
Research based information on familes, housing, health & financial concerns
http://www.montana.edu/wwwhd