Old Missoula

Medill McCormick of Chicago, well-known nationally as a progressive leader and a newspaperman, has been looking Missoula over for a couple of days, while he has been outfitting for a camping trip in the upper Blackfoot country, for which region he will start this morning. Speaking of local conditions, Mr. McCormick said yesterday afternoon: “Your Higgins avenue is one of the finest streets I have ever seen anywhere. It will one day be a street famous throughout the west. Broad and straight, with a transcontinental railway station at each end, it presents possibilities for business development greater than any other street that I ever saw. But I am surprised that the city of Missoula has not obtained control of the river-bank property on the north side below the bridge. That should be done at once, it seems to me. Clear away the buildings there, build a wall along the river, and there is such a water front as any city would be glad to own. The island opposite and this north bank of the river, together, would make it possible for the city to develop a lot of good ground which, in twenty years, would be of inestimable value. The river could be confined to one channel; this could never be done as cheaply as now and if it were to be done, the city would be benefited in more ways than one.”

 The above article appeared in The Missoulian on July 8, 1913

https://www.newspapers.com/image/349089481

 Medill McCormick was a descendant of the wealthy Cyrus McCormick family, founders of International Harvester Company. He inherited The Chicago Tribune while a young man, and also invested in and ran newspapers in other places. He supported T. Roosevelt’s Bull Moose presidential efforts and became a close friend of Missoula’s Senator Joseph M. Dixon, who ran Roosevelt’s Bull Moose campaign. He was married to a prominent suffragette, Ruth Hanna McCormick[1].

He hunted big game in Western Montana with Missoula’s Homer Worden, a brother of Governor Joseph M. Dixon’s wife, Caroline M. (Worden) Dixon.