The Clark’s Fork River and transportation through the valleys and over the Rocky Mountains lie at the core of Missoula’s early history. Captain John Mullan blazed his road through here immediately before the Civil War, and a Mullan Road marker is downtown.
White settlement first arrived in the initial territorial years and a sawmill was the first major business. As a river crossroads town, Missoula grew, and then became a permanent dot on the federal map with the arrival of Fort Missoula, established in 1877. The fort, largely neglected when I conducted my work for the state historic preservation plan in 1984, is now a regional heritage center.
Quartermaster building, Fort Missoula, built 1911.
Fort Missoula overview, taken in 2007.
But so much of that you see and experience today in downtown Missoula is shaped by the arrival of two railroads, the Northern Pacific Railroad in 1883 and then the Milwaukee Road in 1908. In those 25 years, much of historic environment of present-day Missoula was built, creating a north side, south side look to the city that reflects not only the central thread of the Clark’s Fork River but also the impact of the two sets of railroad tracks.
Built in 1901, the Northern Pacific passenger station is an impressive example of Renaissance Revival style, designed by the architectural firm of Reed and Stem, and symbolized the turn of the century dominance of the railroad over the region’s transportation and the importance of Missoula to the railroad as a major train yard. The station, listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1985, stands at the historic “top” of downtown Missoula, which at its bare bones has the classic T-plan of a railroad hub of the late 19th century. The Northern Pacific tracks and related railroad warehouses are the top of the “T” stretching in both directions with Interstate I-90 crossing the river bluffs to the northeast. Two reminders of the historic railroad traffic are adjacent to the station–a steam Northern Pacific engine and a diesel Burlington Northern engine.
From the passenger station stretching into the town itself is Higgins Street,which runs in a straight line to the river. The most important early commercial building, near the Higgins Street bridge is of course the threatened Missoula Mercantile building (discussed
in an earlier blog), which has sections dating to the 1880s. Higgins Street bridge crosses the Clark’s Fork, which on the south side became the street’s connection with the later Milwaukee Road.
The Milwaukee was not to be out-done by the Northern Pacific when it arrived in Missoula in 1908. Railroad architect J. J. Lindstrand gave the line a fashionable Misson-style passenger station and offices, which opened in 1910. It too is listed in the National Register. Like the company’s stations in Great Falls and Butte, built approximately at the same time, the station has a tall tower that commanded the city’s early 20th century skyline, and made the depot easy to find. Located dramatically along the Clark’s Fork River, the arrival of the railroad and the construction of the depot led to a new frenzy of building on South Higgins Street, and a good many of those one-story and two-story buildings remain in use today.
That is enough for now–the railroads of Missoula have been introduced. Next I will explore landmarks between the two depots of Missoula.
Continuing west you soon encounter post-World War II service stations and motels, some updated, some much like they were, on the outskirts of town and then, boom, you are in the heart of Livingston, facing the commanding presence of the Northern Pacific depot complex with warehouses–some now converted to new uses–coming first and then
massive passenger station itself. Opened in 1902, the passenger station was an architectural marvel for the new state, designed by Reed and Stem, who would continue on to great fame as the architects of Grand Central Station in New York City. The station, interestingly, is not Classical Revival in style–certainly the choice of most architects for their grand gateways along the nation’s rail line–but a more restrained interpretation of Renaissance Revival style, completed in red brick.
The building is not particularly inviting for locals coming from the business district to the depot–that was not its primary audience. Rather the grand entrance is track side, where passengers headed to Yellowstone National Park could depart for food, fun, frivolity, whatever they needed before the journey into the wildness of Yellowstone.
Travelers were welcome to use the grand covered walkways to enter the depot proper, or to take a side visit to the railroad’s cafe, Martin’s as I
knew it back in the day, a place that rarely slept and always had good pie. The cafe changed its orientation from the railroad to the road as automobile travelers on U.S. 10 began to dominate the tourist market. Now it has been restored as a local brew pub.
Directly facing the center of the passenger station was the mammoth Murray Hotel–a flea bag operation in the 1980s but now recently restored as a hipster place to be, especially its signature bar.
Imagine my pleasant surprise last year when I found that Gil’s still existed but now had been converted into a decidedly up-scale establishment, far removed from the 1980s.
I don’t know if I have encountered a more fundamentally changed place–cheap trinkets gone, let the wood-fired pizzas come on.
I was not so blinded in 1984 by the concept of the “metropolitan corridor” that I ignored the distinctive Victorian storefronts of Livingston–how could I since they all, in a way, fed into the tracks. But when I got to the end of that distinctive business district and watched the town, in my
mind, fade into the Rockies, I had captured the obvious but had missed the bigger picture–that’s the next story.
Montana's Historic Landscapes 