With five valleys nearly converging here, it’s no surprise that the area has long been used as a thoroughfare. Salish Indians from the Bitterroot and Mission Valleys traveled through Hell Gate Canyon to reach buffalo hunting grounds east of the mountains. They were regularly attacked by the Blackfeet as they entered the canyon, thus giving the passage a formidable reputation.

In fact, Missoula is from a Salish word that has been variously translated as “by the cold chilling waters,” “river of awe,” or simply an exclamation of surprise and horror.

Early white settlers seemed to agree. As the story goes, French trappers were horrified when they came across the remains of all the Salish who never made it through the canyon, and called it Porte de l’Enfer, which became Hell Gate in English.

The first whites on record to explore the Missoula area were Meriwether Lewis and a brigade of his men on their return trip from the Pacific. Lewis and his group camped at the confluence of the Rattlesnake and Clark Fork Rivers in July 1806 and headed through Hell Gate Canyon without incident.

The Hell Gate Treaty of 1855 opened Missoula and much of western Montana to white settlement. The treaty council took place about seven miles west of Missoula on present-day Highway 263, where a state monument can now be found.

Missoula’s growth was spurred by the arrival of the Northern Pacific Railway in 1883. Timber was also important to the town’s development. In 1886, A. B. Hammond built what was reputedly the world’s largest lumber mill at Bonner, seven miles east of Missoula. It produced timbers for railroads and mines as well as construction lumber.

When other Montana cities vied for the state capital and prison, Missoula alone attempted to land the university. It was established as the University of Montana in Missoula in 1895. Since then it has become a major cultural force, as well as one of the city’s major employers.