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, thus it is often described as the "hub of five valleys". The 2020 United States Census shows the city's population at 73,489 and the population of the Missoula Metropolitan Area at 117,922. After Billings, Missoula is the second-largest city and metropolitan area in Montana. Missoula is home to the University of Montana, a public research university.
The Missoula area began seeing settlement by people of European descent in 1858 including William T. Hamilton, who set up a trading post along the Rattlesnake Creek, Captain Richard Grant, who settled near Grant Creek, and David Pattee, who settled near Pattee Canyon. 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. The mills provided supplies to western settlers traveling along the Mullan Road. The establishment of Fort Missoula in 1877 to protect settlers further stabilized the economy. The arrival of the Northern Pacific Railway in 1883 brought rapid growth and the maturation of the local lumber industry. In 1893, the Montana Legislature chose Missoula as the site for the state's first university. Along with the U.S. Forest Service headquarters founded in 1908, lumber and the university remained the basis of the local economy for the next 100 years.
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 governed by a mayor–council government with 12 city council members, two from each of the six wards. In and around Missoula are of parkland, of trails, and nearly of open-space conservation land, with adjacent Mount Jumbo being home to grazing elk and mule deer during the winter. The city is also home to both of Montana's largest and its oldest active breweries, as well as the Montana Grizzlies. Notable residents include the first woman to serve in the U.S. Congress, Jeannette Rankin.
History
Archaeological artifacts date the earliest inhabitants of the Missoula Valley to with settlements as early as . From the 1700s until 1850s, those who used the land were primarily, the Salish, Kootenai, Pend d'Oreille, Blackfeet, and Shoshone. 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 desire for a more convenient water supply to power a lumber and flour mill led to the movement of the settlement to its modern location in 1864.
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, nmesuletkw, 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.