Old Missoula

Section E – Centennial Edition

The last section in the Centennial Edition starts with the article below. It appears on the bottom of a page covered with several images that represent Missoula as it enters what was then the modern era. It features drawings of a good sized Caterpillar pulling a cabled load of logs off a newly logged slope and a fisherman with a wicker creel strapped over his shoulder while a small buck deer observes the activity. Below these are the trappings of industrial growth for Missoula – a concrete mixer truck, a large crane perched over the framework of a new building, and a good facsimile of the new county airport with a plane parked nearby and a parachute jumper about ready to land. The new airport would not be named Johnson-Bell Field until 1968.  WWII had just ended and Missoula was about to grow very rapidly again.

Many of the people who witnessed this era are still alive and kicking. You should talk to them about it. It won’t be that long before Missoula will be celebrating its 2^nd Centennial.

 

1940 to 1960: Era of Great Growth . . .

By E. J. Erlandson – Centennial Editor

The Garden City, situated in the center of one of the most beautiful vacation areas in the nation, enters its second hundred years this fall with as rosy an outlook for the future as any city could.

Missoula’s mushrooming population which in the past 10 years grew from 22,485 to nearly 27,000 promises to continue its healthy growth with some 300 new jobs provided by industries recently joining the local economic picture. The county’s population has grown from 35,493 in 1950 to nearly 45,000 in 1960.

Three large new industries with combined payrolls annually adding millions of dollars to the income of the city have been started here as the first century of progress (going back to the start of Hell Gate) comes to a close.

Latest addition is the Van-Evan Co., which has constructed a huge plant just north of the Missoula Cemetery, providing employment for about 175 men with an annual payroll of approximately a million dollars.[1] Future plans call for expanding this employment another hundred.

Another big boost for western Montana’s economy came with the construction of the Waldorf-Hoerner Paper Products Co. pulp plant west of the city in 1958 and in the addition of a huge paper mill due for completion this year, adding another big payroll and employment for more residents of the valley.

Mission Homes Inc. has been another bright addition to Missoula’s growing economy, displaying a sensational success in its new business in the past five years – producing homes with assembly line methods from the rough lumber right up to the completed house. This big plant just southwest of the Van-Evan Co. provides employment for up to 100 men and has been expanding steadily.

A $2,000,000 shopping center is being planned for the fast-growing commercial area along Highway 93 south of the city.

Contractors generally have been in the midst of a residential building boom, mostly to the south of the city, since the end of World War II, with hundreds of substantial homes and many new commercial buildings being constructed.

The 1940 – 1960 era saw a huge new high school plant constructed on South avenue, the old building on Higgins continuing in use for freshmen. Montana State University[2] got a new field house and a variety of other structures to accommodate a growing student body. And School District 1 kept pace with the growing population by constructing some handsome new structures.

Missoula continued to be a popular convention city, supporting a thriving hotel business and a grow array of fancy motels.

The huge new St. Patrick Hospital addition was completed. Along with the Northern Pacific and Community hospitals and several new clinics, the Garden City has continued to be a medical center for a large sector of Montana, also drawing patients from parts of Idaho and eastern Washington.