Missoula Street Names Recall Events of History and Ancient City Feuds by “Stan” Healy
Missoula Street Names Recall Events Of History and Ancient City Feuds
By E. S. “Stan” Healy
Back in the good old days when Missoula’s streets were lined with hitching posts instead of parking meters there trod the wooden sidewalks a number of individuals who have left their hallmarks on the city’s annals of history.
Their names appear in records that are now dusty and yellowed and their characters are recalled mainly in the memories of those who came early to the struggling town at the foot of Hell Gate, but in a way, they are brought most frequently to the notice of the present day public by the presence of their names on street signs and maps.
There are Evans, Worden, Woody, Higgins, McCormick, Brooks, Stephens, McWhirk, Toole, Beckwith, Bickford, Daly, Urlin, Keith, Hastings and Beverly on the street sign posts along with the names of authors, presidents, states and trees.
The names of the streets were chosen by those who owned land and decided to have it broken up into blocks, streets and alleys. They hired a surveyor or engineer to make the geographical locations and draw up a chart – or a plat – of the property. The subdivision was given a name, usually that of the landowner, and he and the surveyor got together in naming the streets. They marked the street names on the plats and submitted the charts to the Board of County Commissioners in what is called “qualification.” The board most generally approved the plat, along with the street names as suggested. But if the new streets were continuations of existing streets the names were changed to agree with the streets already accepted. Thus the first men to plat land in Missoula got their names on the longest streets. Higgins Avenue, named for Capt. Christopher P. Higgins, one of the founders of the city, is an example. It is the second longest street in Missoula’s city limits, second only to Broadway (once Cedar street).
The Evans Family
There is Evans Avenue, named for John M. Evans, congressman from the First District, mayor of the city and a police judge here. Beverly and Hastings Avenues are named for his sons.[1]
North-South avenues paralleling and east of S. Higgins Avenue are named for the children of Capt. Higgins. Street signs bear their names in order of age. Beginning at the base of Mount Sentinel there is Francis Avenue, and moving west, Maurice, Arthur, Helen, Hilda, Ronald and Gerald. At one time avenues were named for George and John Higgins. They were between Francis and Maurice. John Avenue is now the South side portion of Van Buren Street.
Stephens Avenue, the street which was the subject of a raging controversy in 1892, is named for William J. Stephens, who with Walter M. Bickford, sponsored the South Missoula Addition, which was once an isolated town between Missoula and Ft. Missoula. A government road led from the south end of the bridge across the Clark Fork River in the 80s and 90s and Stephens Avenue, widest thoroughfare in Missoula, was intended to be the main route south, especially to the fort, an active post in those days. But Knowles and Montana Additions were laid across the north end of Stephens and blocked traffic. The question of the “crooked bridge” came up, with an issue whether the bridge across the river should connect with Stephens or with S. Higgins Avenue. An old bridge bent from its takeoff point to a spot near the point where the present Milwaukee Railroad Station now is located. Claude Elder, long-time Missoula resident, recalls that at the south end of the bridge was Fisher’s South Missoula Bridge Saloon, “last stop for a schooner of beer before leaving for the fort.” The battle ebbed and flowed until the flood of 1908 washed out the existing bridge and the modern structure was built to connect with S. Higgins. Stephens Avenue, grandly planned, became just another route south, less its projected boulevard parking and cross -shaped corner markings. South Missoula Addition became a part of the city but the diagonal layout east and west of Stephens still is evident.
Frank H. Woody
Woody Street is named for Frank H. Woody, who clerked in the Frank L. Worden store at Hell Gate and became an editor, historian and a district judge in Missoula years later. Woody’s name appears on countless records at the Courthouse as a notary public, clerk and recorder and as judge.
Worden, for whom he worked at first, was the man who with Capt. Higgins, founded Missoula in 1865. Worden Avenue is named for him, and his home at 328 E. Pine (named for a tree) St., was one of the first houses in the new town.
It stood alone in its vicinity until after 1883 when the Northern Pacific Railway arrived in the city.
Urlin Avenue, one of the main streets of the North Side, is named for A. J. Urlin, old-time official and orchardman. McCormick Street and the addition are named for W. J. McCormick. Daly Avenue got its name from Marcus Daly. Harris street is named in favor of a clerk in the old Higgins-Worden store.[2] George F. Brooks left his name on Brooks Street, which now is part of U. S. Highway 93. Brooks was a businessman interested in real estate. Stevens Street is named for either William Stevens, who constructed Missoula’s first bridge (south of the present St. Patrick Hospital) or for Isaac I. Stevens, governor of Washington Territory. Blaine Street takes its name from the Saron Blaine family, which had the first house south of the Clark Fork River.
One street was lost to the city during the flood of ’94, and evidently its name disappeared since then as well. It is not listed on modern maps. Elder says that the high water eroded the roadbed and when the flood went down the street was missing.
Bank Street took its name from the First National Bank.
As a researcher prowls the dusty records at the City Hall and Courthouse he becomes aware that despite the fact that in the past someone has wanted to endow a person with lasting memory by naming a street after him, no record was made other than to write the name on a plat. Inez Street for example. Who was Inez? What was her last name? The persons who platted Knowles Addition knew her but they left no public record of her full name. There are many such cases in Missoula.
The creators of some additions expressed their patriotism by naming streets for Presidents. Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and so on through Polk take care of streets paralleling Higgins Avenue on the East side. But some of the Presidents got scattered. Roosevelt Street is on the South Side, and Lincoln, on the West Side, was the old route to the Missoula Cemetery.
Other surveyors and land owners were of a literary turn of mind. Missoula has thoroughfares named after Milton, Holmes, Dickens, Cowper, Burns and Byron. Tree names on Missoula streets include Ash, Myrtle, Pine, Spruce, Alder, Cottonwood and Oak. The city also has a Queen and Prince Street but no King.
Probably the shortest street is Rock Street. Broadway is the longest. Stephens is the widest. A number vie for the title of roughest. Not only streets have picturesque names. Missoula has a Pig or Paradise Alley. Missoula has several streets with names of only one letter. These are A, B, C, D and E Streets, on the North Side.
But, far and away, the most picturesque and history-crammed street in town bears the plain, unimaginative name of Front Street.
Front Street was the main street in Missoula from the first. It was built on the Mullan Trail, established by Capt. John Mullan. There is a statue of Mullan in Missoula but it isn’t on the Mullan trail; it’s near the Northern Pacific Railway passenger station.
Probably there have been more killings and suicides on Front Street in its day then all the rest of Missoula together. The street has been a trail, a rowdy row of houses of public accommodation, a site of theaters and of burlesque houses where beer was 5 cents on the ground floor and got more expensive as you climbed the stairs. On Aug. 14, 1892, a fire swept W. Front Street and a few hours after the embers cooled the scion of one of the village’s first families was murdered and his companion wounded by a stranger named John Burns. Burns was convicted and hanged for the murder, in which he had taken the life of Maurice Higgins.
The old Gem theater was on West Front Street, and at least one of the buildings in the area still has peepholes in the parlors. The first brewery was on the street, along with the first butcher shop, grist mill, carpenter shop, store, saloon and bawdy establishments.
East Front Street had no such a riotous history. There were blacksmith shops and residences. As a traveler went east on the street in olden times he encountered a ford across Rattlesnake creek.
The story is told of the man who was too stingy to take his buggy to a blacksmith to have the wooden wheels tightened. Instead, he drove the buggy into the creek at the ford so the water would swell the wheels. But the buggy began to float. Faster and faster, toward the river, the Hell Gate River as it was called then. The stingy man grabbed the top of the buggy and was swept out into the river. He was seen no more but presently a sodden horse dragged the remnants of a buggy ashore.
In the vicinity of this ford resided a person named Bowen, and because he raised hogs, one of Missoula’s first names was Hogum. Bowen’s farm was a fairly large place, says Will Cave, long-time resident. It took in most of East Front Street, he recalls.
But as time passed, so did the importance of Front Street. Worden and Higgins built a store at the site now occupied by the Montgomery Ward store, and Higgins Avenue began to take on more importance. As a matter of fact a war was soon fought over the end of Higgins Avenue. Residents of the North Side of the city complained bitterly when the Northern Pacific Railway began to erect a new passenger station. They said they would have to detour by four blocks to get to the business section. On the evening of July 12, 1896, when “everyone in town” was at a baseball game, black smoke was observed to be rising from the practically completed station. The smoke increased and shortly the building was belching flames. The new building was leveled and, according to accounts of the incident, arson was whispered. Ruins of the building remained until 1897.
The coming of the Northern Pacific in 1883 had made a difference in streets in the north end. Rose Avenue sported a hotel, and the Montana Hotel was constructed near the then station, now the site of an underpass. Elder recalls there was a Grand Central Hotel, Buckeye Saloon & Hotel and the Brunswick Hotel. The Brunswick building now is a tavern and the old Montana Hotel is a warehouse. Three horse-drawn busses used to gather at the little station when train whistles were heard up the canyon and the teams would haul passengers over the mud of Woody Street to the Florence, Missoula and Rankin House hotels.
Also in the transportation business was the “Old Solom Limited,” a streetcar of Toonerville proportions hauled indifferently south to Front Street by a gray mare. The carbarns were at the intersection of Woody and Cedar Streets. Cedar Street was renamed in 1928 to become Broadway.
The change was to make the thoroughfare “more dignified.” Broadway (or Cedar) wasn’t the main highway west in those days. Traffic left via W. Spruce Street. Earlier Spruce Street had been a waterfront street, with a large ditch coursing along from Rattlesnake Creek to the “sister’s school,” now Sacred Heart Academy. Both Cave and Elder recall the fish caught in the ditch north of the street.
Streets in the old days, where not muddy, were paved in erratic pattern. Cedar Street, appropriately, was paved with cedar blocks. This choice proved unfortunate because on rainy days the wood would swell, creating a hump, and in extreme cases, an explosion in which the flying wood would send the teams and buggies scurrying for safety. Higgins Avenue Bridge also was paved with cedar blocks, with the same results. The blocks were replaced in relatively modern times.
The above article appeared in The Daily Missoulian on February 1, 1953.