US 93, Mile Post 82, South of Lolo

Since Coyote first prepared this place for human beings, the Bitterroot Valley has been the homeland of Salish-speaking peoples of western Montana-the Qlispe (Kalispell or Pend d’Oreille) and the closely-related Selis (Bitterroot Salish or “Flathead”). Their tribal ways helped maintain its great natural abundances. The Lolo area – called Tmsmli, or No Salmon, has always been favored for its deer-hunting, Bitterroot and camas carpeted valley.

Long ago, the Selis lived between here and the Yellowstone. Smallpox epidemics and ware with the rifle-armed Plains tribes led them to concentrate within the Bitterroot. They continued ot hunt buffalo east of the mountains.

In 1855, the Hellgate Treaty designated the valley south of Lolo Creek a “conditional” reservation. Elders still recall with bitterness and grief their forced removal to the Flathead Indian Reservation in 1891. The Bitterroot Valley remains of great spiritual and material importance to the Selis, who revisit and utilize their cherished homeland, the resting place of countless generations.

Buy the e-book of all Montana Historical Highway Markers: https://mhs.mt.gov/pubs/Publications/montanas-historical-highway-markers

Credits and Sources:

Sign text.

Montana's Historical Highway Markers, Jon Axline, Montana Historical Society Press. 2008.