 A new high school and municipal airport opened in 1958 at opposite ends of the town.Railroad companies with large timber holdings in the Darrington area began to leave the Stillaguamish and Sauk valleys in the 1960s, leading to the rise of independent "gyppo" loggers who salvaged discarded timber while under contract to regional paper mills.A large open-pit mine on Miners Ridge was planned by Kennecott in the late 1960s, but halted after intervention from environmental activists and local politicians.