MISSOULA

city, seat (1866) of Missoula county, western Montana, U.S. It is situated on Clark Fork of the Columbia River, at the mouth of the Bitterroot River, near the Bitterroot Mountains in a broad valley (elevation 3,223 feet ). The first white settler in the area was Father Pierre Jean de Smet, who founded (1841) St. Mary's Mission at nearby Stevensville. Missoula originated in the 1860s as a trading post on the Mullan Road, a wilderness trail between Fort Benton and Walla Walla, Wash. It was formerly called Hellgate; the etymology of its present name is uncertain. Its development was stimulated after 1883, when it became a division point on the Northern Pacific Railway, and with the founding there of the University of Montana in 1893. Missoula's economy centres on lumber and paper milling, beet-sugar refining, dairying, agricultural marketing, tourism, and educational facilities. An entry point to Lolo National Forest (headquartered at Missoula) and Clearwater, Bitterroot, and Flathead national forests, it is the regional headquarters for the U.S. Forest Service and Montana State Forest Service. It is also the site of the Northern Forest Fire Laboratory and is the training centre for the smoke-jumping crews of forest-fire fighters. Fort Missoula (a pioneer stockade) and the Flathead Indian Reservation are nearby. Inc. 1885. Pop. (1990) 42,918.