As run along the Missoula Marathon course on an early summer morning, you’d never know that in the mid-1800s the path you’re on was the route of a major military wagon road. This historic travel corridor served as one of the main catalysts for development all along its line and near this point at the confluence of the Clark Fork and Bitterroot Rivers.

In 1858, Lieutenant John Mullan was commissioned to construct a military road from Walla Walla, Washington, east to Fort Benton, Montana, at the end of the river trade route along the Missouri River. Mullan’s road would eventually traverse approximately 625 miles of wilderness through the Rocky Mountains to the Great Plains. The project took Mullan five years to complete and was the only major transportation route between the Missouri River and the Columbia River until the coming of the railroads in the 1880s.

In the summer of 1860, at nearly the center of Mullan’s route, construction crews entered the Missoula Valley. The road followed a well-travelled Salish Indian trail through the valley. Soon, enterprising businessmen established a trading post in the valley along Mullan’s road and the site became known as Hell Gate Village. In the three years following construction of the road, an estimated 20,000 travelers along with a million dollars in freight followed Mullan’s route through the Missoula Valley.

In 1864, C. P. Higgins and Francis L. Worden constructed a sawmill and a gristmill (flour) just off the Mullan road and south of what is today the intersection of Front Street and Higgins Avenue. By 1866, with the mill in full operation and an expanding populace, the area took on the name of Missoula Mills.

Missoula Mills eventually was renamed Missoula, and it continued to expand and grow. Other entrepreneurs located their businesses along Mullan’s road, making the east-west corridor the business center of town. Mullan’s road became a central facet for the development of Missoula, Montana.

During the 1970s, the American Society of Civil Engineers designated the Mullan Road as a historic civil engineering landmark. Also, portions of the road near Great Falls, Montana, and in Idaho are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. A number of monuments mark the route. One such marker, designed by Missoula artist Edgar Paxon, is located in Circle Square at the north end of Higgins Avenue, near the Northern Pacific Depot.

Credits and Sources:

"Historic Missoula - European Settlement." http://www.historicmissoula.org/History/CulturalResources/EuropeanSettlement/tabid/224/Default.aspx. Accessed April 29, 2015.

Mathews, Allan James. A Guide to Historic Missoula. Helena: Montana Historical Society Press, 2002.

Historic photos courtesy of Archives & Special Collections, Maureen and Mike Mansfield Library, The University of Montana-Missoula