Old Missoula

World’s Fair Exhibit Included This Region

Frank R. Miles was in Missoula in May of 1892 in connection with his exhibition at the world’s fair of Montana Indians in their native state. The exhibition was to include buffalo, deer and other animals. A company was organized by Miles to consist of Montana men and eastern capitalists to be known as the Montana & Columbian Buffalo and Indian Exhibit Co.

Arrangements were made for lease of the herd of buffalo belonging to Charles Allard on the Flathead Indian Reservation. About 100 buffalo and four or five of the most prominent tribes of Montana Indians were to take part. It was planned to take about 12 or 15 lodges of the Flatheads, Kootenais, Nez Perces, Pend d’Oreilles and Blackfeet. They were to be exhibited as nearly as possible in their native state, with tepees pitched, and engaged in dressing wild skins, making trinkets, moccasins and bead work, while surrounded by deer, buffalo and prairie dogs. The war dance was an important feature with all the Indians participating to be thoroughbreds.

Wild deer were to be shipped and slaughtered on the ground, the hides tanned, dressed and manufactured into articles of different kinds by the Indians.

The report on the Miles visit ended: “There will be an exhibition of their forms of worship, and the old buck and young buck will be in it the same as when they roamed through the wild grand valleys and mountains of Montana half a century ago. There will be an interpreter present to ask and answer questions for the accommodation of the public.”