The Anaconda Leader published its final edition last week, ending 55 years of twice-weekly local news coverage in a copper mining city 26 miles southwest of Helena. For anyone who cares about what's happening in their own community, the closure is worth sitting with.

Robbie Dee, an Anaconda native who had subscribed to the Leader for as long as he could remember being an adult, held the final edition in his hands Thursday. Dee had also advertised in the paper, giving him the perspective of someone who depended on it in two different ways. The Leader's closure leaves Anaconda — a city of roughly 9,000 people with its own city government, school district, and civic institutions — without a local newspaper for the first time in more than half a century.

The loss of a local paper doesn't happen dramatically. It happens gradually — a few less reporters, a few less pages, a few less council meetings covered — and then one day there's no paper at all and nobody can quite remember when they stopped knowing what was happening at the school board. Anaconda is now in that position. Government meetings will still happen. Decisions will still be made. They just won't be reported.

Helena is not Anaconda. The Independent Record still covers the city, and the Daily Montanan and other outlets have expanded their presence in the capital. But the Anaconda Leader's closure is a concrete reminder that local news is not self-sustaining, and that the communities left without it don't get it back.