blackfoot-valley

Other developments were brewing, that, in combination would build momentum and change the economy of the region forever by bringing white men in numbers. The first organized attempt to build a major transport ar- tery in Montana got started when in early March of 1853, Lieutenant John Mullan left Fort Owen in the Bitterroot Valley for Fort Benton on the Missouri. On horseback he made his way up the Clark Fork Valley to the place where that river is met by the Little Blackfoot (near present Garrison). Continu- ing eastward along that stream and over the Divide through what was later named Mullan Pass, he followed the Missouri drainage northeast beyond the Great Falls and reached Fort Benton on March 12th after ten days and roughly 270 miles of riding. Mullan was subsequently commissioned to build a military wagon road between Fort Benton and the “headwaters” of the Columbia at Walla Walla in The first modern transport facility New Arrivals 70