Missoula’s Top 10 by Ed Erlandson
Missoula Milestones by Ed Erlandson
Every year newspapermen select the top stories or events of the preceding year, and the list varies from newspaper to newspaper, usually influenced by the geographical location of the paper compiling the list.
To the best of my knowledge I have not seen a list of the 10 top events in the history of a city. Take Missoula, for instance. What would you say were the top 10 events most significant in the development of this community since it was founded 114 years ago?
Certainly the construction of the gristmill and sawmill, near what today is the north end of the Higgins Avenue Bridge, must be included in that list. Those two production units were the start of the Garden City.
The founding of Hell Gate about four miles west of Missoula in 1860 by C. P. Higgins and Francis Worden surely should be listed because that little frontier trading post was the forerunner of present-day Missoula, with its founders responsible for the start of the Garden City about 1865 with the two mills.
In 1869 the first school teacher Emily Slack (Dickinson), arrived in the town to mark the start of formal education in the community. A hospital to care for the sick and a newspaper to keep the community informed were both started in 1873 in the form of St. Patrick Hospital and the Weekly Missoulian.
An important event of Oct. 1841 – the founding of St. Mary’s Mission at what today is Stevensville by Father DeSmet – is credited by many as the start of Montana. It brought Christianity to the area, playing an important part in the development of Missoula as well as the state. The first church at Hell Gate was St. Michael’s, started in 1863 by the Catholics, and the first church building for Protestants was the Methodist Church, built in 1872 and used as a meeting place by Episcopalians and Presbyterians as well.
Lumping religion into one event, that makes six events already on the list.
The coming of the Iron Horse in 1883 in the form of the Northern Pacific Railway must be listed in the Top 10 because it had a tremendous impact on the development of the entire Northwest, including Missoula.
The selection in 1893 (by legislation) of Missoula as the site of the University of Montana contributed tremendously to the growth of Missoula over the years.
So we’re down to two and that creates quite a problem for there are probably 25 more strong candidates for the Top 10.
I’ll have to go with the founding for Fort Missoula in 1876 (we have never been successfully invaded by anyone but spruce budworm because of that installation) and the founding of Region 1 of the Forest Service in 1908.
It was on Dec. 1, 1908, that the first regional office was started in the old Hammond Block (Hammond Arcade of today was built to replace it when the old building was destroyed by fire). In 1913, the offices were moved to the second floor of the federal building on E. Broadway above the post office.
The first big sawmill at Bonner, the first bank, store, city and county governments, and a great number of other firsts surely could be strong candidates for the Top 10.
And there are those who would like to include Alabama and USC.
The above HellGate Breeze Column appeared in The Missoulian on February 10, 1979.
Ed’s column must have been the spark for a few local conversations. For some reason Ed – and many others – overlooked the signing of the Hell Gate peace treaty at Council Grove in 1855. I would rank it very high on this list.
You can read more about Milltown native Ed Erlandson at the link below: