By Rose Boyer

Photo by Denny Lester

Ovando bartender Jeri Friede displays a T-shirt poking fun at the neighboring town of Lincoln and its Unabomber troubles. The T-shirts cost $14 and have been available at Trixi’s Antler Saloon in Ovando for the past nine years.

Photo by Evianne Netherwood-Schwesig

"You can have it your way with the Jerry Burns," says Teresa Garland, owner of Howdy's Deli. The sandwich special is named after the forestry agent who helped the FBI arrest Ted Kaczynski. Howdy's isn't at all strict about sandwich protocol, and some customers alter every ingredient except the key one: meatloaf.

Montana. Land of the big sky, the Unabomber, and very little else!

You can bid on one of many T-shirts with this slogan on eBay. The starting bid is $5, but most go for somewhere between $14.99 and $24.99. It will be shipped from San Diego, Calif.

You can also buy Phil Laak collectibles. Laak is a professional poker player who wears a trademark gray hoody and dark glasses and plays under the name “The Unabomber.” Plastic figurines of Laak’s head and shoulders are available. There are commemorative poker chips. If you’re lucky, someone might be selling a bobblehead.

And there are books for sale: “Unabomber: A Desire to Kill,” by Robert Graysmith; “Drawing Life: Surviving the Unabomber,”  by one of the bombing victims, David Gelernter; and “Harvard and the Unabomber: The Education of an American Terrorist,” by Alston Chase.

You can even find a copy of the 1996 made-for-TV action/adventure movie starring Dean Stockwell, “Unabomber: The True Story.” An anonymous review of the movie on Amazon.com sarcastically gives it five stars. “This is the greatest cinematic experience I have ever had…. The suspense from the clerk’s line when he receives a small package and jokes, 'Hope this isn’t a bomb!’ kept me right on the edge of my seat.”

The search for and capture of the Unabomber 10 years ago left its mark on the entire nation, the state of Montana and the little town of Lincoln, where the Unabomber made his home and was finally caught. Driving into Lincoln (population 1,100) on Highway 200, however, you will not see a billboard that says “Lincoln, Montana — Land of the Big Sky, the Unabomber, and very little else.” While most residents wouldn’t argue with the Big Sky part, or even the very little else part, many will say that Ted Kaczynski and his history in Lincoln have very little to do with the identity of the town.

People who lived in Lincoln back then remember Kaczynski in their own way. The guy who rode his bike. The guy who took his groceries in a dark green army knapsack. Some remember him as Ted. Some remember him as Teddy. Rumors occasionally pass through town about who still writes letters to Ted and who knew him the most. But, mostly, Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, is history in Lincoln. Some try to forget that the whole thing even happened. 

“It was a non-event,” says Jack Ward, who owns a towing business in town.

But it’s impossible to forget about the Unabomber completely. Tourists and people just passing through Lincoln, on their way to somewhere else, still ask about him. Just a few weeks ago someone asked Carol White, a bartender at the Wilderness Bar on Main Street, how to get to Kaczynski’s land. She told them. White sees the Unabomber and his tie to Lincoln as a curiosity for people more than anything else. 

But none of the bars or gift shops in Lincoln sell Unabomber T-shirts. Ten years ago, a few people had them printed up. Ward sold about a dozen out of his tire shop. The Fire Department sold some as a fundraiser. A few sellers ran into trouble when they used the well-known sketch of the Unabomber wearing a hood and big sunglasses only to find out that the illustrator had copyrighted the image and threatened a lawsuit. 

It’s rare to see anyone wearing any of those T-shirts today. Teresa Garland, owner of Garland’s Town & Country store, can’t remember the last time she saw anyone wearing one. Ward, who once had several, no longer has any. “I think we wore ‘em out. That was quite a long time ago,” he says. 

Quite a few businesses didn’t sell Unabomber T-shirts. Garland  chose not to sell them in her store. “He had been picked up as the Unabomber; he could have been a murderer,” she says. “We just chose not to make money off of that.  We didn’t think twice about it.” 

White at the Wilderness Bar agrees. “To capitalize on that wouldn’t be right,” she says. And J.J. Johnson, a manager at the Hi-Country Trading Post, says, “We didn’t want to make money off a murderer.” 

While Garland didn’t feel it was right to market a Ted Kaczynski T-shirt or a Unabomber sandwich at Howdy’s Deli, the sandwich shop connected to her store, she did sell items associated with Jerry Burns, the U.S. Forest Service officer who aided in  Kaczynski’s arrest. Burns received the Law Enforcement Officer of the Year award for helping the FBI catch the Unabomber. It was the second time he earned that same award, the highest given by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. A pamphlet on the table at Howdy’s Deli describes Burns’ story in heroic detail. And, every two weeks or so, the deli offers a Jerry Burns meatloaf special – a fried meatloaf and pepper jack sandwich with ketchup.

Twenty miles down the road from Lincoln, at Trixi’s Antler Saloon in Ovando, you can get a T-shirt that says, “If you want a drink go to Trixi’s. If you want to get BOMBED go to Lincoln.” 

“It’s kind of a weird thing to make a profit off of, but people like a gimmicky T-shirt,” says the owner of Trixi’s, Cindy Francis. The bar sells only four or five a month, sometimes more during tourist season. 

Some tourists stop on the edge of Lincoln, put on a gray hoody and dark sunglasses and snap a picture in front of the sign that says “Lincoln.”

If there is anything about living in the town where the Unabomber lived that many Lincoln residents identify with, it is that he was permitted his privacy.

“It’s nice to have a place where people pretty much mind their own business,” says Tammy Cooper, who works behind the counter at Grizzly True Value Home Center.

 “You know, you don’t bother your neighbors, but you look out for them.”