Missoula, Montana

Missoula ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Missoula County, Montana, United States. It is located along the Clark Fork River near its confluence with the Bitterroot and Blackfoot rivers in western Montana and at the convergence of five mountain ranges, and thus it is often described as the "hub of five valleys". It is the second-most populous city in Montana with a population of 73,489 at the 2020 census and estimated at 78,204 in 2024, while the Missoula metropolitan area has an estimated 128,000 residents. Missoula was founded in 1860 as Hellgate Trading Post while still part of Washington Territory. By 1866, the settlement had moved east, upstream, and had been renamed "Missoula Mills", later shortened to Missoula.

By the 1990s, Missoula's lumber industry had gradually disappeared, and , the city's largest employers were the University of Montana, Missoula County Public Schools, and Missoula's two hospitals. The city is also home to both of Montana's largest and its oldest active breweries, as well as the Montana Grizzlies.

History

thumb|left|Teepees at the site of Missoula, south of the [[Clark Fork River, facing northeast]]

Archaeological artifacts date the earliest inhabitants of the Missoula Valley to , with settlements as early as . From the 1700s until the 1850s, those who used the land were primarily the Salish, Kootenai, Pend d'Oreille, Blackfeet, and Shoshone people. Located at the confluence of five mountain valleys, the Missoula Valley was heavily traversed by local and distant native tribes that periodically went to the Eastern Montana plains in search of bison. This led to conflicts. The narrow valley at Missoula's eastern entrance was so strewn with human bones from repeated ambushes that French fur trappers later referred to this area as ', translated as "". would remain the name of the area until it was renamed "Missoula" in 1866.

The Lewis and Clark Expedition brought the first U.S. citizens to the area. They twice stopped just south of Missoula at Traveler's Rest. They camped there the first time on their westbound trip in September 1805. When they stayed there again, on their return in June–July 1806, Clark left heading south along the Bitterroot River and Lewis traveled north, then east, through Hellgate Canyon. In 1860, Village was established west of present-day downtown by Christopher P. Higgins and Frank Worden as a trading post to serve travelers on the recently completed Mullan Road, the first wagon road to cross the Rocky Mountains to the inland of the Pacific Northwest.

The Missoula Mills replaced Village as the economic power of the valley and replaced it as the county seat in 1866. The name "Missoula" came from the Salish name for the Clark Fork River, , which roughly translates as "place of frozen water". Fort Missoula was established in 1877 to help protect further arriving settlers. Growth accelerated with the arrival of the Northern Pacific Railway in 1883, and by charter, Missoula incorporated a municipal government as a town, the same year. In 1885, Missoula reincorporated its government as a city.

In 1893, Missoula was chosen as the location for the first state university, the University of Montana. The need for lumber for the railway and its bridges spurred the opening of multiple saw mills in the area, and in turn, the beginning of Missoula's lumber industry, which remained the mainstay of the area economy for the next 100 years. Missoula is also home of the smokejumpers' headquarters and will be the site of the National Museum of Forest Service History.

thumb|left|View of downtown from Mt. Sentinel

Logging remained a mainstay of industry in Missoula with the groundbreaking of the Hoerner-Waldorf pulp mill in 1956, which resulted in protests over the resultant air pollution. An article in Life 13 years later speaks of Missoulians sometimes needing to drive with headlights on during the day to navigate through the smog. In 1979, almost 40% of the county labor income still came from the wood and paper-products sector. The lumber industry was hit hard by the recession of the early 1980s, and Missoula's economy began to diversify. By the early 1990s, the disappearance of many of the region's log yards, along with legislation, had helped clean the air dramatically.

In 1883, the Northern Pacific Railroad arrived in Missoula, spurring rapid growth in the town, which by then had about 500 residents.

In March 1970, the Northern Pacific, along with three other closely affiliated railroads (Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, Great Northern and Spokane, Portland & Seattle) merged to form Burlington Northern.

thumb|A [[Montana Rail Link oil train. Until January 2024, when BNSF resumed operations on the tracks formerly leased to MRL, the defunct company had its headquarters in Missoula.]]

In 1987, BN decided to lease, for an initial term of 60 years, the ex-NP route to entrepreneur Dennis Washington, who formed Montana Rail Link. MRL established its headquarters in Missoula.

In January 2022, BNSF agreed to pay MRL $2 billion for an early lease termination. The return to BNSF control required the approval of the Surface Transportation Board, and this was later approved on March 8, 2023. BNSF took over operations on January 1, 2024. This absorbed the MRL into BNSF, integrating MRL operations, technology and personnel. All 1,200 employees were offered employment with BNSF.

, education and healthcare were Missoula's leading industries; the University of Montana, Missoula County Public Schools, and the two hospitals in the city were the largest employers. St. Patrick Hospital and Health Sciences Center, founded in 1873, is the region's only Level II trauma center and has undergone three major expansions since the 1980s. Likewise, the University of Montana grew 50% and built or renovated 20 buildings from 1990 to 2010. These industries, as well as expansions in business and professional services, and retail are expected to be the main engines of future growth.

On June 2, 2025, the Missoula City Council passed a resolution making the rainbow flag its official flag, allowing it to be flown on city property despite the state law (HB 819) prohibiting flags other than official municipal flags and "historical flags of the United States" from being flown on Government property.

Missoula's oldest commercial district, Downtown is also home to more than 30 buildings listed on the National Register of Historic Places beginning in 1976 with the A.J. Gibson designed County Courthouse constructed in 1908 being added. The Post Office, Wilma Theatre and Higgins Block were all added a couple years later. In the 1970s businesses fled Downtown for cheaper land in Southwest Missoula. This created a second commercial district focused around the Southgate Mall, built in 1978. Subsequent deterioration of Downtown ironically saved its future. With old buildings too expensive to replace and no big businesses moving in rents began to fall. This led to the myriad of small start-up shops in historic buildings that Downtown is known for today. The area went from bankrupt to the center of Missoula's arts and culture in matter of 25 years. In the late 1990s North Reserve Street became the new center for large retail stores. Located at the cross streets of Highway-93 and the old Mullan Road with easy access to Interstate 90, the area has become a major shopping destination for local and regional customers.

Geography

thumb|Missoula Valley

Missoula is located at the western edge of Montana, less than from the Idaho border as the crow flies. By highway it is south of Kalispell, northwest of Butte and southeast of Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. The city is at an elevation of above sea level, with nearby Mount Sentinel and Mount Jumbo steeply rising to and , respectively.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , of which is land and (0.54%) is water. At the location of present-day University of Montana, the lake once had a depth of . The Clark Fork River enters the Missoula Valley from the east through Hellgate Canyon after joining the Blackfoot River east of downtown, at the site of the former Milltown Dam. The Bitterroot River and multiple smaller tributaries join the Clark Fork on the western edge of Missoula. The city also sits at the convergence of five mountain ranges: the Bitterroot Mountains, Sapphire Range, Garnet Range, Rattlesnake Mountains, and the Reservation Divide, and thus is often described as being the "hub of five valleys".

Suburbs

Bonner-West Riverside
Clinton
East Missoula
Evaro
Frenchtown
Lolo
Orchard Homes
Piltzville
Turah
Twin Creeks
Wye

Flora and fauna

Located in the Northern Rockies, Missoula has a typical Rocky Mountain ecology. Local wildlife includes populations of white-tailed deer, moose, grizzly bears, black bears, osprey, and bald eagles. During the winter, rapid snowmelt on Mount Jumbo due to its steep slope leaves grass available for grazing elk and mule deer. The rivers around Missoula provide nesting habitats for bank swallows, northern rough-winged swallows, and belted kingfishers. Killdeer and spotted sandpipers can be seen foraging for insects along the gravel bars. Other species include song sparrows, catbirds, several species of warblers, and the pileated woodpecker. The rivers also provide cold, clean water for native fish such as westslope cutthroat trout and bull trout. The meandering streams also attract beaver and wood ducks. The parks also host a variety of snakes such as racers, garter snakes, and rubber boa.

Native riparian plant life includes sandbar willows and cottonwoods, with Montana's state tree, the ponderosa pine, also being prevalent. Other native plants include wetland species such as cattails and beaked sedge, as well as shrubs and berry plants such as Douglas hawthorn, chokecherry, and western snowberries. Controversially, the Norway maples that line many of Missoula's older streets have also been declared an invasive species.

Climate

Missoula has a humid continental climate (Köppen climate classification Dfb), with cold and moderately snowy winters, hot and dry summers, and short, crisp springs and autumns. Winters are usually milder than much of the rest of the state due to Missoula's location west of the Rockies, allowing it to receive mild, moist Pacific air and avoid the worst of cold snaps; however, it also gets more precipitation in winter. Winter snowfall averages , typically occurring between October 30 and April 20, with an annual average of 120 days of snow on the ground. As with the rest of the state, summers are very sunny, and the average diurnal temperature variation is more than from late June through late September, due to the relative aridity. The monthly daily average temperature ranges from in December to in July. On average, annually, there are 24 days with temperatures at or above , 45 days where the temperature does not rise above freezing, and 7.8 days with temperatures reaching at or below . Record temperatures range from on January 26, 1957, up to , most recently on June 30, 2021; the record cold maximum is , last recorded on February 2, 1989, while, conversely, the record warm minimum is on July 27, 1939.

Demographics

and symbolic resolutions calling on Congress to withdraw from and to amend the U.S. Constitution to declare that "corporations are In 2011, the Montana legislature, with a Republican House majority, attempted to overturn Missoula's marijuana law and revoke its ability to have an anti-discrimination ordinance that included the LGBT community. The marijuana repeal was vetoed by then-Governor Brian Schweitzer and the attempt to repeal the anti-discrimination ordinance died in the State Senate.

In 2020, Missoula County became the first county in Montana to adopt a county sales tax on gasoline (an option afforded to counties in Montana that had gone unused for several decades). The Montana Legislature and Governor Greg Gianforte blocked this decision the following year, repealing the sales tax provision from state law.

Education

thumb|The [[University of Montana campus, showing Mount Sentinel with ]]

Missoula's first school was opened in late 1869 with 16 students from around the region and their teacher Emma C. Slack, who had come to Missoula by a two-month trip by horseback, railroad, and boat from Baltimore at the invitation of her brother. She resigned two years later upon marrying (the first couple married in Missoula) and was replaced by Elizabeth Countryman, who later married Missoula's first mayor, The first public high school was opened in 1904, but was converted back to a grade school after the Missoula County High School (now Hellgate High School) was opened in 1908. After several expansions, Stanford University was commissioned in 1951 to create a master building plan to manage future growth. It suggested purchasing land and building an additional campus at the Garden City Airport's Hale Field, which was gradually being replaced by the Missoula County Airport, which was then southwest of town. The new school (now Sentinel High School) was opened in 1957. Initially, the two campuses were separated between upper and lower classmen with upper classmen in the new school, but in 1965, the two campuses became separate high schools. In 1980, Missoula's third public high school, Big Sky, was established.

Missoula County Public Schools has two components: Missoula Elementary School District and Missoula High School District. The city of Missoula is divided between the following elementary school districts: Most of Missoula is in Missoula Elementary School District while other portions are in Hellgate Elementary School District, DeSmet Elementary School District, Target Range Elementary School District, and Bonner Elementary School District. All residents are in the Missoula High School District. The school district numbers of the districts are In Missoula, there are nine public elementary schools (kindergarten to 5th grade), three public middle schools (6th to 8th grades), four public high schools (9th to 12th grades), and three public schools serving kindergarten to 8th grade.

The University of Montana dominates higher education in Missoula. with 12,922 students . The campus houses six colleges and three schools including Montana's first and only law school, the Alexander Blewett III School of Law. The university is also the location of the state's Regional Federal Depository Library, and houses the state Arboretum. The University of Montana College of Technology, established in 1956 and formerly known as the Missoula Vocational Technical Center, offers fast-track learning programs. Multiple vocational programs not affiliated with the university ranging from photography and massage to truck driving also have a presence in Missoula.

Missoula has a public library, the Missoula Public Library.

Media

Broadcast

Missoula's single–broadcast over–air television media market is the largest in Montana and ranked 165 nationally . Though Missoula itself is second in population to Billings, Montana, Missoula's single-broadcast over-air television media market includes all of Missoula, Ravalli, Granite, Mineral, Lake, Flathead, and Sanders Counties in the more densely populated western region of Montana and serves over 112,600 television homes . Missoula is home to three local affiliate channels: KPAX-TV (CBS/MTN; founded 1970; ), KECI-TV (NBC; founded 1954 as KGVO-TV; ), and KTMF-TV (ABC, FOX; founded 1991; ). Also based in Missoula at the University of Montana is (founded 1984; ).

Print and online

Missoula has three main sources of print and digital media: the Missoulian (daily), The Missoula Current (daily), and Montana Kaimin (college). The Missoulian was founded as a weekly publication in 1870 as The Missoula and Cedar Creek Pioneer and remains the city's oldest news product. The Missoula Current was founded in 2015 and provides local and regional coverage and is the state's largest digital-only news product. The MontanaKaimin (founded 1891) is distributed for free throughout parts of Missoula with heavy student traffic from the University of Montana, where the newspaper is printed weekly every Thursday during the school year.

Infrastructure

Health care

Missoula has two primary health care facilities: St. Patrick Hospital and Health Sciences Center and Community Medical Center. St. Patrick's was founded in 1873 under the sponsorship of the Sisters of Providence. It is the only Level II trauma center in western Montana and has undergone three major expansions since the 1980s. The hospital has 195 acute-care beds and admitted over 9,700 patients in 2003. The name was changed from "St. Patrick Hospital" to "St. Patrick Hospital and Health Sciences Center" in 2000 to reflect an increasing involvement with national medical research and education. It was founded in 1922 as Thornton Hospital by doctors Will Thornton and Charles Thornton and has been at its current location since 1972. Although originally a locally owned, nonprofit hospital, it is now owned by a large corporation headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee, and is a for-profit entity. It is the only hospital in Western Montana with a separate Pediatric Intensive Care Unit. The center is partnered with Seattle Children's Hospital. In 1871 city co-founder Frank Worden began construction of a long pipe and wooden main system that flowed from the Rattlesnake Creek north of the city. With the addition of two small covered reservoirs, the first municipal water system was begun in 1880. With an intake dam built-in 1901 with a settling basin capacity of , the Rattlesnake Creek continued to meet the demands of the city until 1935 when five wells were added to respond to increased summer and fall demand. This system is still maintained as an emergency backup but was discontinued as a primary source after Giardia outbreak in 1983. Since then, Missoula has relied on the Missoula Valley Aquifer as the sole source of water. In 1889, the first electrical plant was built by to power his major downtown properties such as the Missoula Mercantile and the Florence Hotel. In 1905, the Missoula Mercantile (by then owned by Copper King William A. Clark purchased the water system and consolidated it with its vast electrical holdings to create the Missoula Light and Water Company (ML&W) a year later. Electricity and water remained bundled after ML&W's sale to the Montana Power Company (MPC) in 1929. In 1979, MPC sold its water utility holdings as Mountain Water Company to Park Water Company in Downey, California, which since 2011 has been a subsidiary of The Carlyle Group. In 2015, the City of Missoula was legally granted its right to acquire the water system by exercising its power of eminent domain", but the decision was upheld by a district court.

Following the deregulation of Montana's electricity market in 1997, Montana Power Company began to divest its energy business. MPC sold substantially all its electrical generating assets to the PPL Corporation in December 1997 and its energy transmission and distribution business to NorthWestern Corporation in February 2002. Despite filing for bankruptcy in 2002, NorthWestern Corporation's subsidiary NorthWestern Energy is the primary provider of electric and natural gas service to Missoula in addition to the Rural Utilities Service's Missoula Electric Cooperative.

Local telephone service in the area is provided by CenturyLink and Blackfoot Telecommunications. Major cell phone providers include AT&T, Sprint, Verizon, and T-Mobile. Allied Waste handles recycling through a program where customers can purchase special blue bags to designate recyclables. Recycling has also been offered by Missoula Valley Recycling since 1992, by Garden City Recycling since 2010 which offers curbside pickup, and by Pacific Steel & Recycling which offers drop-off recycling. Sewer service is handled by the City of Missoula Wastewater Division.

City layout and development

thumb|left|Higgins Block in Downtown Missoula

In the mid-1860s, and Frank Worden began plotting what would become the town of Missoula along the Mullan Military Road, which ran parallel to the Clark Fork River. Through downtown Missoula, the route of the road is now Front Street. The arrival of the Northern Pacific Railway in 1883 led to a housing boom along the tracks, particularly on the northern side where many of the railway workers would reside. When the Higgins Avenue Bridge was replaced in 1893, they debated whether the bridge should continue southwest toward the Bitterroot Valley as it had earlier or due south. Attorneys and had already laid out plots of land five years earlier for what they hoped would be a new town of "South Missoula". The streets there were perpendicular to the Bitterroot Wagon Road. In contrast, Judge Hiram Knowles who owned the land just south of the river preferred the north–south plan and did not want to become part of South Missoula. thumb|right|The "Slant Streets" The result was a along the west side of Higgins Avenue commonly referred to as the "Slant Streets" centered along what is now Stephens Avenue. Stephens Avenue and Brooks Street are the only arterials to traverse the city diagonally along with the Bitterroot Branch of Montana Rail Link. With the exception of Downtown, the rest of the city, where streets follow the angle of the river, and newer expansions into the hills, strictly follow the grid plan.

The city is divided into 18 neighborhood councils, of which all Missoula residents are members. The city further contains 10 historical districts: Downtown Missoula, East Pine Street, Fort Missoula, Lower Rattlesnake, McCormick, Northside, Southside, University Area and, the campus of the University of Montana.

Trail system

Missoula has an extensive trail system for both commuting and recreation that extends over . The city is actively trying to connect its various sections within the city to each other and to recreational trails extending beyond the city. The heart of the Missoula Commuter Bike Network is the trails along either side of the Clark Fork River that link Downtown with surrounding neighborhoods, the university, city parks, and outlying open space with smooth surfaces and three bicycle/pedestrian bridges. The most southern of these is Milwaukee Trail, which follows the former Milwaukee Railroad and continues east out of town as the Kim Williams Nature Trail beside Mount Sentinel. The Bitterroot Branch Trail connects to the Riverfront trails west of Downtown and, when completed, will provide a trail from Downtown to Southgate Mall. Near the Bitterroot Branch Trail, but not connected, is the South Avenue Trail on the west side of Reserve Street that connects the Community Medical Center with Fort Missoula, nearby athletic fields, and the Bitterroot River. The South Hills neighborhood has its own system of trails that is also approaching, but not quite meeting, the larger network.

Transportation

Highways

runs east–west along the northern edge of Missoula at the base of the North Hills, with all but a small portion of the city located south of the highway. Completed in 1965 at the expense of 60 homes, the Garden City Brewery, and the Greenough Mansion, I‑90 has four city exits and makes connections with , and Montana Highway 200. serves as a major economic corridor for western Montana, connecting Missoula with the Bitterroot Valley communities to the south and Flathead Lake, Kalispell, and Glacier National Park to the north. , the longest state highway in the United States, enters Missoula from the east and provides access along the Blackfoot River and a direct route to Great Falls.

Transit

Public transportation in Missoula began as early as 1890 with a horse-drawn streetcar system (electrified in 1910) operated by the Missoula Street Railway Company that connected Downtown Missoula with the university, Bonner, the fairgrounds, and Fort Missoula. These streetcars were then replaced by buses in 1932 due to cost. Bus service today is provided by Mountain Line, a public transit agency created by public vote in 1976 as part of the Missoula Urban Transportation District (MUTD) that began operation in December 1977. Mountain Line operates 14 bus routes within a area, serving Missoula, East Missoula, Bonner, Target Range, Rattlesnake, and the airport. Additionally the line has offered paratransit services since 1991 to assist the disabled, senior van since 2008, and has four park‑and‑ride lots throughout Missoula. Special bus service is offered to the University of Montana through three of the city's park‑and‑ride lots in addition to a late-night UDASH shuttle that offers service between the university and Downtown. a three-year pilot program of zero-fare transportation on all Mountain Line buses began, with the goal of increasing ridership by 45 percent.

Bus lines

Direct intercity ground travel needs are provided by bus carrier Jefferson Lines.

Railroads

Intercity rail travel was available from 1883, when the Northern Pacific Railway began service through Missoula, until 1979 when Amtrak discontinued its North Coast Hiawatha route across southern Montana. In 1901, the Northern Pacific built their station at the terminus of Higgins Avenue; since 1985, it has been on the National Register of Historic Places. The Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad built their "Pacific Extension" through Missoula, and that station was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.

A feasibility study was commissioned by Congress in 2008 to examine the merits of reopening the North Coast Hiawatha, but , the nearest rail station to Missoula is the Whitefish station of Amtrak's Empire Builder, to the north.

Bicycles

In 2009, the Missoula metropolitan statistical area (MSA) ranked as the fifth highest in the United States for percentage of commuters who biked to work (5 percent). In 2013, the Missoula MSA ranked as the tenth lowest in the United States for percentage of workers who commuted by private automobile (77.2 percent). In the same year, 8.5 percent of Missoula area commuters walked to work.

Airport

thumb|221x221px|Missoula International Airport

In 1927, air travel to Missoula began; today the city is served by Missoula Montana Airport, a public airport run by the Missoula County Airport Authority. It is the largest airport in western Montana, serving 913,198 passengers in 2023. The current building contains three jet bridges and three ground‑level boarding gates.

Notable people

Missoula has produced and been home to a number of notable individuals in varying fields. Its natives and residents are referred to as "Missoulians". In politics, Jeannette Rankin, the first woman in Congress, was born and raised in Missoula while Senators Mike Mansfield, the U.S.'s longest serving Senate Majority Leader, and Max Baucus, Montana's longest serving U.S. Senator both established careers and joined politics while living in the city.

Noted athletes who were born or resided in Missoula include five Olympic medalists, Pro Football Hall of Fame Quarterback John Elway, and former Milwaukee Bucks coach Larry Krystkowiak.

Filmmaker David Lynch, actor Dana Carvey, and award-winning biologist Leroy Hood were born in Missoula, while Carroll O'Connor and J. K. Simmons attended the University of Montana. Composer David Maslanka lived in Missoula. Musician Jeff Ament and YouTuber, science communicator, novelist, and entrepreneur Hank Green reside in Missoula. Academically, Missoula has been home to Nobel Prize winners Harold C. Urey and Steve Running as well as 20th-century Montana historian K. Ross Toole.

Noted names in literature include Native American poet James Welch, crime novelist James Crumley, former head of the University of Montana's Creative Writing Program Richard Hugo, William Kittredge, a western writer and professor of creative writing at the University of Montana at Missoula, and Norman Maclean, whose A River Runs Through It chronicles his life in early 20th-century Missoula. Joanna Klink, poet and professor at the University of Montana. Michael Punke, the author of the best-selling novel The Revenant, also lives in Missoula.

Sister cities

Neckargemünd, Baden-Württemberg, Germany
Palmerston North, New Zealand

Missoula's Sister City relationship with Palmerston North, New Zealand, began after Missoula resident and later University of Montana professor Harold Bockemuehl returned from obtaining his PhD from Massey University. The relationship was made official in 1983 after a meeting between then UM President Neil Bucklew and officials from Massey University. Each May, Missoula celebrates "New Zealand Day" in honor of the relationship with rugby, food, and entertainment. Missoula's second Sister City relationship began in 1991 after a Neckargemünd delegation, led by Mayor Oskar Schuster, visited Missoula following a Fulbright-sponsored faculty exchange between Heidelberg University and the University of Montana. Every September the Missoula Cultural Council holds an annual "Germanfest" to celebrate German culture and this relationship.

Portrayal in media

Author Norman Maclean grew up in Missoula and wrote about it in his 1976 autobiographical novella A River Runs Through It. The work was adapted into a 1992 motion picture of the same name, directed by Robert Redford and starring Brad Pitt and Craig Sheffer.

Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town, a 2015 book by Jon Krakauer, focused on a series of sexual assault cases between 2010 and 2012 and the way that the Missoula Police Department, the Missoula County Attorney's Office, and the University of Montana handled those cases. Missoula's handling of rape cases sparked a Justice Department's investigation that found a "pattern of disrespect and indifference toward alleged victims" by Missoula law enforcement, prosecutors, and the university, with scathing blame directed at the Attorney's Office. While being interviewed on NPR about the book, Krakauer stated, "I don't mean to single out Missoula: Its rape rate is a little less than the national average; I think its problems with dealing with rape are pretty depressingly typical." Nevertheless, reporting by Krakauer and local and national journalists showed what they characterized as a troubling pattern of authorities mishandling investigations, treating victims with hostility and suspicion, reflexively protecting alleged perpetrators at the expense of victims, declining to prosecute large numbers of credible rape allegations, and creating an atmosphere where victims were unlikely to come forward after an attack. Krakauer placed a significant portion of the blame for the mishandling of rape prosecutions on a single Deputy County Attorney, Kirsten Pabst, who now serves as the Missoula County Attorney. The book also charted deep divisions within the town about the allegations, particularly those involving football players from the Montana Grizzlies.

There is a lengthy study of Missoula in the title essay of British writer Jonathan Raban's Driving Home: An American Journey: despite writing that on his arrival, "I had the powerful impression that I had driven deep into the Rocky Mountains and somehow arrived in Rotherham or Barnsley," and that "the overall effect was oddly unsettling; the streets too open for comfort, the town too closed in, inducing mild claustrophobia and agoraphobia at the same time",

The Harkema Industrial Park in Project Wingman, a complex of ocean platforms, is constructed over a post-Calamity submerged Missoula.

Notes

References

External links

Missoula Visitors Bureau
Missoula Chamber of Commerce
Missoula Collection Guide (University of Montana Archives)
City of Missoula (Mont.) Records, 1883-2022 (University of Montana Archives)

Cultural heritage resources

Maureen and Mike Mansfield Library Archives and Special Collections
The Historical Museum at Fort Missoula's Public Research Boxes
Missoula Art Museum's Online Collections Database