The confluence of the Big Blackfoot and Clark Fork rivers is also a confluence of stories. The geologic features have been influenced by fault zones and Glacial Lake Missoula.

From Time Immemorial, native peoples have used the area for fishing and as a stop along "The Road to the Buffalo."

The Age of Exploration began in 1806 when Meriwether Lewis traversed the area and continued up the Blackfoot River.

Surrounded by Woody Mountain, Bonner Mountain, and University Mountain, the river valleys of the Big Blackfoot and Clark Fork Rivers converge, home to the neighborhoods of Bonner, Milltown, Piltzville, and West Riverside.

The Akerson family settled early in the Piltzville area.

Several early residents are important to the Bonner-Milltown story.

Hiram Farr homesteaded in 1882, and he owned 160 acres near the first NP railroad bridge across the Big Blackfoot. In May of 1884, he sold his land (along with a cow!) to the Montana Improvement Company for $100.  The deed also included his water rights, two stoves, chains, a broad ax, and "other tools and implements on said land too tedious to mention." The MIC were looking for land on which to construct a sawmill, which is known today as the Bonner Mill.

In 1881 John McCormick bought land for a farm from John F. Higgin in the area that eventually became Milltown.  After the completion of the Hammond-Bonner mill in 1886, just 1/2 mile away, McCormick began to lease some of his land to the workers in the 1890s.  By 1892, there were a dozen houses, a livery stable, a rooming house, and three saloons.  Some of the Finns who had come to work in the mill moved to the newly leased lots after they were flooded out of their cabins along the Big Blackfoot River in 1891.

McCormick sold his farm and the existing leases to the Clark-Montana Realty Company (William Andrews Clark’s operation) in 1904.  Clark immediately divided the land into lots ranging in size from 35 to 130 feet.  He leased the lots to mill workers for $1.25 per month, but they had to build their own homes.  Some houses from 1905 still stand today.

John Richlie was the first resident in what is now West Riverside.  Initially he lived in an abandoned trappers cabin before bringing his wife Adelia and mother-in-law Barbara Zaugg from Missouri.  Originally from Switzerland, the Zauggs arrived in 1884 on the newly completed Northern Pacific Railroad.  The Richlies moved to the DeSmet area, but Mrs. Zaugg and her six other children “proved up” and remained in the area.

In 1887 Daniel Bandmann bought 160 acres across the Clark Fork River from Jacob Rehder, who had raised Macintosh apples there.  Bandmann, who was retired, raised exotic breeds of cattle and rehearsed Shakespearian plays in the property's stable, which he remodeled into a stage.  He died in 1905, but his widow Mary sold 42 acres to Clark-Montana Realty in 1910; this land became part of Clark’s Riverside Park.  According to the Missoulian, this fulfilled Bandmann’s wishes.  He more than once expressed his desire to be able to convert this tract of land into a park for the people of Missoula.  Bandmann’s legacy lives on as the remnants of his ranch are being developed as a golf course community in the area known locally as Bandmann Flats.

Confluence of the Clark Fork and Blackfoot Rivers The BonnerMilltownHistory,org website explores and celebrates the area around the confluence of the Clark Fork and Blackfoot Rivers. The area is flanked by mountain ranges and peaks: Bonner Mountain, in the Garnet Range, towers above its namesake community and Piltzville; across the Blackfoot River to the west, Woody Mountain of the Rattlesnake Range rises above West Riverside and Pine Grove; and across the Clark Fork to the south is Mount Sentinel and University Mountain, part of the Sapphire Range.

 

 

Native people guided the first Euro-Americans to the site. On the Fourth of July 1806, Meriwether Lewis and his party left their Nez Perce guides and traveled up what he called the East Fork of Clark’s River, passed through the confluence, which Lewis described in his journal, and continued up the Blackfoot River.

On the same route, some 55 years later, the Mullan Road connected river commerce on the Missouri and Columbia Rivers. The confluence of the Big Blackfoot River and the Clark Fork River was the site of Lt. John Mullan’s camp during the winter of 1861-62, when he was in the process of building the military road from Fort Benton, Montana, to Walla Walla, Washington. Early settlers followed, and the rivers were soon put to work.

Salish Chief Sam Resurrection fished in the Milltown area well into the 20th Century. Native Americans were the early users of the area now called Milltown, Bonner, and West Riverside. Native Americans were the early users of the area now called Milltown, Bonner, and West Riverside.  A well-worn trail to and from the buffalo led through Hellgate Canyon on the north side to the junction of the Blackfoot River, where it forked.  The trail was used by Salish, Pend D’Oreille, Nez Perce and others.

The Bonner area was recognized for its bull trout fishery, and there were campsites along the river.  In fact, the Salish name for the confluence of the Big Blackfoot and the Clark Fork means “the place of the mature bull trout.”  The Salish Tribal Council notes that one of the elders born in 1910 remembers camping along the river in fall hunting season just upstream from Bonner while the men would fish in the Clark Fork just upstream from the confluence.

Check back soon for new content here. In the meantime visit website of the People's Center and the website for the book, The Salish People and the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Both are efforts of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes.  Also visit the Montana Tribes Digital Archive, a project of the state of Montana's Indian Education for All program.