Missoula County History

The city of Missoula began as a tenuous settlement known as Hell Gate in 1860, when entrepreneurs C. P. Higgins and Francis Worden saw trade possibilities and opened a log store in the valley.

The search for gold and the completion of the Mullan Road in 1863 opened up travel from Fort Benton, Montana, to Walla Walla, Washington, and brought people to the Missoula Valley. The settlement became known as Missoula, taken from a Salish Indian word meaning "near the cold, chilling waters."

The city's success was aided by four factors. First, the U.S. Army established Fort Missoula southwest of the town in 1877. Second, the Northern Pacific Railroad reached Missoula in 1883, the same year the city was incorporated. Missoula became a trading center in earnest, distributing produce and grain grown in the agriculturally prosperous Bitterroot Valley. Businessmen A. B. Hammond, E. L. Bonner, and R. A. Eddy established the Missoula Mercantile Company in the early 1880s. Third, the University of Montana opened in September 1895. And, finally, in 1908, Missoula became a regional headquarters for the Forest Service, which began training smokejumpers in 1942. The Aerial Fire Depot was built in 1954, and big industry came to Missoula in 1956, with the groundbreaking for the first pulp mill.