National Register of Historic Places – Fort Missoula
See link below for the document – National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet
“Fort Missoula, the only permanent military post in Montana west of the Continental Divide, was established in June 1877. The strategic intent of the choice of the Fort location was for greater military control of the Indian tribes of Western Montana and to assure the protection of white settlers from hostile Indian attack. By 1877, however, reservation lands had been established in western Montana and few major uprisings occurred which involved the soldiers. Fort Missoula’s significance rests less with its direct military role in quelling uprisings and more with the sequence of non-combative military uses of the property by the federal government and the consistent contribution Fort personnel had made to local economic development. Through the years, Fort Missoula has been used as the headquarters for the Black 25th Infantry Regiment, the place from where the potential military applications of the bicycle were explored, a government training school for skilled mechanics to aid in the World War I effort, the largest Civilian Conservation Corps Headquarters in the United States during the 1930s, a detention camp for Italian artists and seaman as well as Japanese-Americans during World War II, and, for a short time following World War II, Fort Missoula became a medium security prison camp for American soldiers. Fort Missoula was chosen by the Federal government to fulfill these various functions because it was an extant and chronically under-utilized facility and due to its remote siting in Western Montana. The one-hundred year history of Fort Missoula may be read in the buildings and structures that survive today as well as in the evidence of previous structures whose foundation remains clearly demonstrate previous use, spacing, lay-out, and functional relationships.”