Missoula County History – Founding or Foundling
County to Observe Founding (December 14, 1860) Monday
By Jane Byard
In 1860 the 54 residents of the Missoula Valley, then part of the Washington Territory, proud of their new community and dissatisfied with being separated from the nearest county government office by a two-day ride, asked that a new county, Bitterroot County, be created from huge Spokane County, which stretched from Walla Walla, Wash., to the Rocky Mountains.
On Dec. 14, 1860, 115 years ago Sunday, the Washington Territorial Legislature created Missoula County on the east side of the Bitterroot Mountains, and Shoshone County to the west.
Monday at 3:30 p.m. the Missoula County commissioners will celebrate the county’s 115th birthday with a party in Room 201 of the Missoula County courthouse annex. The public is invited to attend, have a piece of free birthday cake and listen to John Toole, whose great-grandfather Cornelius C. “Baron” O’Keefe was one of the first county commissioners, reminisce about the history of Missoula County.
According to Audra Browman, who said Monday she studies Montana history “just for the fun of it,” Frank Worden and Christopher Higgins, partners in a store in Walla Walla, loaded goods on 75 pack animals in the summer of 1860 and came to Missoula to trade with Indians. They started the Hellgate Trading Post on Mullan Road, which at that time was the Military Road, built by John Mullan to move troops from Fort Benton to Walla Walla.
Hellgate, the tiny community growing around Worden’s and Higgins Trading Post, was designated as the Missoula County seat, Browman said.
“Two years later Missoula County became a part of Idaho Territory and 15 months after that the Territory of Montana was created,” Browman wrote in “Nemissoolatakoo Valley: Crossroads of Western Montana,” an early history of Missoula prepared for a Montana Institute of the Arts history group.
Montana was admitted to the Union as the 41st state in 1889, 19 years after Missoula County was created.
Browman said many state “firsts” took place in Missoula County including creation of the first post office, first white couple married, first white child born, first jury trial held, first school established and first official hanging. She noted that some persons discount the Missoula County “firsts” because Missoula County was not part of Montana when they happened.
Nemissoolatakoo, an Indian name for the Missoula Valley, was shortened to Missoula by white men, according to Browman. The meaning of the phrase is no longer known, she wrote, although “some say . . . it suggests a happy place of sparkling waters, while others are just as sure it refers to a place of chilly waters to be dreaded.”
The above article appeared in The Missoulian on December 9, 1975.
Early History Is Recalled at Courthouse Party
By Jane Byard
The first trial in the Missoula County, Montana Territory, took place when Baron O’Keefe was tried in Bolte’s Saloon, Hellgate, on charges of killing Tin Cup Joe’s horse back in 1864.
O’Keefe asked to see Judge Blackie Brooks’ judicial credentials. Brooks spread a deck of cards across the bench and said “These are my credentials.”
O’Keefe said “You want to see mine?”
“And he hit him right in the face,” John H. Toole, student of Missoula history and great-grandson of Baron O’Keefe, told about 100 persons celebrating Missoula County’s 115 birthday Monday at the county courthouse.
Missoula County was officially created by the Washington Territorial Legislature on Dec. 14, 1860, after approximately 50 residents of the area petitioned for a new county. The original Missoula County was composed of Lincoln, Sanders, Lake, Ravalli, Missoula and Mineral counties. Toole said what is now Missoula County was first part of Oregon Territory, then Washington Territory. In March 1863, Missoula County became part of Idaho Territory, and finally in 1864 became part of Montana Territory.
“Baron hated toll bridges. Rather than pay a toll, he’d swim the river,” Toole said.
O’Keefe later served in the Montana Legislature, and introduced a bill outlawing toll bridges, Toole said, adding that the abolishment of the toll is also responsible for the absence of a sales tax in the state.
The first county seat, Hell Gate, a small community four miles west of what is now Missoula, was moved to Missoula in 1865 to take advantage of the river current to power a grist mill. And the first county courthouse was built in 1871 at a cost of $22,000, Toole said.
“The biggest historical event that ever happened in Missoula,” was the celebration when the Northern Pacific Railway reached town, Toole said.
According to Toole, saloonkeepers put barrels of liquor in the street so all could drink, and a huge cannonball was fired down Higgins Avenue. Toole said John Rankin, father of Jeanette Rankin, was leaning against the cannon when it was fired, was knocked to the ground and lost hearing in one ear,” . . . “which may or may not account for the amazing qualities of the Rankin family.”
“Before that we were a pioneering community – a frontier outpost,” Toole said.
Lud Browman, chairman of the Missoula County commissioners, announced at the party that a $5,000 grant from the Montana Committee on the Humanities will be used to make six television documentaries about the history of Missoula County. The first documentary will be aired at 10 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 21, on KGVO television, Browman said.
The above article appeared in The Missoulian on December 15, 1975.
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No Birthday Celebration of Missoula County
It’s interesting that Missoula County’s birthday has not been officially celebrated since 1975. At least it appears that way. More often than not, Missoula County’s birthdate is overshadowed by what we think of as Missoula city’s birthdate, which is generally recognized as 1865. Or Missoula County’s birthday is often presented in conjunction with Hell Gate’s birthday, which is also 1860; the date of the arrival of pioneers Higgins and Worden to the valley with their provisions for founding a place of business.
One notable fact, sometimes overlooked, is that Missoula County was the first county in what is now Montana. It existed four years before Montana Territory did. The creation of Missoula County took place in Olympia, Washington in 1860, reflecting the need for organized self-government, mainly in response to recent growth in the Bitter Root valley. A map of the Oregon and Washington Territory in 1860[1] does not even show a Missoula River; not Missoula anything, only Hell Gate, at the junction of the three important rivers and their valleys, Hell Gate River, Bitter Root River, and Blackfoot Fork.
The big centennial celebration in 1960 will forever be the highwater mark of historical interest in Missoula, Hell Gate, and Missoula County. The local Missoulian newspaper furnished a huge edition dedicated to the birth of the community. Among hundreds of articles this edition presented one that detailed the history Missoula County as it changed from Washington Territory, to Idaho Territory and finally Montana Territory. The county designation also changed over time, beginning with Clarke County, then divided to Skamania County, then Walla Walla County, then Spokane County, and finally Missoula County. The area included in this fifth iteration was still huge, including a good portion of what is now western Montana. The County seat also changed with these reorganizations; from Wordensville, then Hell’s Gate, and finally Missoula.
In December, 2010, Missoula’s Kim Briggeman wrote a great Missoulian article celebrating the 150th birthday of Missoula County. With humor, Briggeman noted that the founding legislation came with some macabre irony:
“Considering the shenanigans that transpired in what became western Montana over the next few years – especially the bloody deaths at Hell Gate in 1864 – 1865 – you have to wonder if “‘carrying the law into execution’” wasn’t misinterpreted.”
Briggeman also noted that the Montana legislature moved the seat of the county from Hell Gate to Missoula in 1865, and then made it one of Montana Territory’s original nine counties.
He also noted that the county’s first election occurred the summer of 1861, with a meager 74 votes cast at three sites; Jocko Agency, Hell Gate, and Fort Owen.
No Celebration of 150th Anniversary
Still, there was no official celebration that I can find reference to in 2010 for Missoula County’s 150th anniversary.
The next event that qualified as a celebration happened in 2014, the 150th anniversary of creation of Montana Territory. The Missoulian, along with writer Briggeman, and Dr. Bob Brown at the Fort Missoula Historical museum, agreed to “jump on the sesquicentennial bandwagon” and joined to kick off a two-year celebration that opened with exhibits at the Fort museum. It came billed as “Growing the Garden City: Missoula’s First 150 Years.” It included museum exhibits on everything from Missoula’s leadup to WW1, the Fort Missoula’s WW2 detention center, and the history of forestry in Missoula. Apparently, the Fourth of July, 2015, was the crowning event.
Locally, Missoula County’s 160th birthday was not on the historical agenda for December 14, 2020. No mention of Missoula County’s birthday appeared in The Missoulian on that day. What a shame!
So, what can be done to preserve Missoula County’s Birthday. Start with building and preserving the County’s history in general. It needs to start at the offices of Missoula County officials and requires the participation of the commissioners themselves. If for no other reason than to highlight that the county has a unique past that is different from the city’s.
It is an older institution that has a history that is specific to Montana’s 1st County. The sheer size of the area involved was bigger than some states. In the early days the logistics to maintain an operation that big had to have been incredible. Try to find a simple list of Missoula’s County Commissioners from the past, or try to find out who were the County Attorneys and judges. Good luck. The Montana Committee for Humanities was willing to spend $5,000 for documentaries about Missoula County in 1975. Surely the county’s forefathers deserve some attention today.