“I've lived there for 29 years”
Tom Bolton is a lifelong Walkerville resident descended from lifelong residents and he never misses a local election.
“My mom was the president of the town council, I’m the Fire Chief for the town of Walkerville,” Bolton said. “So local government’s a huge thing for me, politics starts right here.”
But last November, as three candidates were contesting a town council seat, Tom realized something wasn’t quite right.
“I was thinking, you know, we should be getting those ballots in the mail. And I should have asked, but I didn't. I just talked to the neighbors, and they all said that they hadn't received theirs yet either,” Bolton said.
Election day arrived and Bolton, plus more than 30 of his neighbors, hadn’t received ballots for the town council vote, while other parts of town had. So Bolton went down to the Butte-Silver Bow County courthouse to try to vote in person.
“And when I got to the courthouse, they said, ‘well, Bennet Street's not in Walkerville.’ I've lived there for 29 years. I've always voted in the Walkerville elections. So when did that change?” Bolton said.
Last year, some of Walkerville’s roughly 700 residents were moved, technically speaking, out of town without them knowing it.
The town's boundary used for elections was changed after a local redistricting process, which redraws boundaries after each Census.
Walkerville, a tiny, close-knit mining community just north of Butte, has remained an independent enclave for decades, even as the rest of Silver Bow county consolidated around it.
But this dispute over the town’s boundaries and a looming vote over its future could determine where and if the town continues to exist.
Butte-Silver Bow Clerk Linda Sajor-Joyce explained what happened to some Walkerville residents’ ballots at a recent county commission meeting.
“What happened during redistricting was, the maps we would look at had Walkerville — the southern border and especially the southeastern border — in different places,” Sajor-Joyce said.
It can be hard to tell exactly where Butte ends and Walkerville begins. There’s no highway or clear geographic divide. The only real indicator is a pair of metal signs on either side of town that read ‘Welcome to Walkerville: a Mining Legend”.
Bolton lives right on the southern edge of town. He’s always thought his street was the dividing line; on his side it’s Walkerville and on the other it’s Butte.
That’s true, depending on what map you look at.
A clear line but uncertain future
Inside Walkerville’s town hall, Mayor John Ries unfurls a large map of the area. It shows the new lines that county officials used to determine who got Walkerville ballots and who got Butte ballots.
Ries points to a 1956 survey signed by local and state officials as evidence that the traditional line, the one where Tom’s street is the border, is the correct one.
“If people asked you where you're from, people were very proud. They'd say, well, we live in Walkerville, but we don't live in Butte,” Ries said. “And so Walkerville has its own distinction.”
Sajor-Joyce agrees the ‘56 survey sets a strong precedent. “That was the last time the mayor from Walkerville and the mayor from Butte agreed what the line was,” she said.
A new survey recently re-established that the historical line is the correct one. Both towns are in the process of finalizing documents that outline Bolton’s street as the boundary line.
But the future of Walkerville remains uncertain and confirmation of the town’s boundaries means its long-time residents will have a say in its future.
Every decade, municipal governments in Montana are constitutionally mandated to present a choice to voters over whether to form a study commission to evaluate their form of government.
“So we want to make sure that those who are eligible to vote on that question in Walkerville are in that precinct,” Sajor-Joyce said.
Walkerville residents could vote this year on whether or not they want to remain an independent enclave north of Butte, or be absorbed.
Not the same town
Ries says there are definite benefits for the town keeping its autonomy — it can run its own services like snow removal and street repair, while still receiving things like water service and police from the county. He says it’s important to keep the town’s identity.
Walkerville was formed by immigrant families who came to work the mines. When the rest of the county voted to consolidate in the late 1970s, their descendants saw preserving he town’s autonomy as a way to preserve that communal history.
But the town’s population has dwindled and changed in the decades since it originally voted to keep Walkerville separate from Butte.
“There are very few, actually, of us left that were born and raised in Walkerville,” Ries said.
It’s unclear how the town’s new population will view a possible consolidation without the same connection to the place lifelong residents have.
The new residents of town might look at independence as a vestige of the past and an unnecessary complication of local government
“I just think it'd be interesting to see how some of the newer or younger people that have moved up here would feel about, you know, whether Walkerville should keep its sort of independence, you know, its identity as a town,” Ries said.
Tom Bolton, the volunteer fire chief living on the disputed boundary line, got the resolution he was looking for.
Regarding the looming study commission vote, he’s optimistic residents will protect the enclave’s autonomy and identity.
“I hope so. I think you're going to see a lot of people that are loyal to the neighborhood, to the town,” Bolton said.
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A local government review is designed to evaluate how a city or county government operates right now, and also explore ways that the government can improve. This spring, voters have an opportunity change the structure of their local government for the next 10 years.
