Missoula, Montana

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 12,000 years ago with settlements as early as 3500 BCE. 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 Porte de l'Enfer, translated as "Gate of Hell".[15] Hell Gate would remain the name of the area until it was renamed "Missoula" in 1866.[10]

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.[16][17] 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, Hell Gate Village was established 5 miles (8 km) 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.[10] 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.[18]

The Missoula Mills replaced Hell Gate 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".[19] 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.[20] 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.[11] The United States Forest Service work in Missoula began in 1905.[21] Missoula is also home of the smokejumpers' headquarters and will be the site of the National Museum of Forest Service History.[21] Nationally, there are nine Forest Service regions; Region 1 is headquartered in Missoula.[22]

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.[23] 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.[24] In 1979, almost 40% of the county labor income still came from the wood and paper-products sector.[25] The lumber industry was hit hard by the recession of the early 1980s and Missoula's economy began to diversify.[26] By the early 1990s, the disappearance of many of the region's log yards, along with legislation, had helped clean the air dramatically.[27]

As of 2009, 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.[12] 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.[28] Likewise, the University of Montana grew 50% and built or renovated 20 buildings from 1990 to 2010.[29] These industries, as well as expansions in business and professional services, and retail are expected to be the main engines of future growth.[30]

Missoula Valley

Missoula is located at the western edge of Montana, approximately 45 miles (70 km) from the Idaho border. The city is at an elevation of 3,209 feet (978 m) above sea level, with nearby Mount Sentinel and Mount Jumbo steeply rising to 5,158 feet (1,572 m) and 4,768 feet (1,453 m), respectively. According to the Census Bureau's 2015 figures, the city had a total area of 29.08 square miles (75.3 km²), of which 28.90 square miles (74.9 km²) were land and 0.184 square miles (0.48 km²) were covered by water.[31]

Ancient wave-cut shorelines are visible on the edge of Mount Sentinel.

Around 13,000 years ago, the entire valley was at the bottom of Glacial Lake Missoula. As could be expected for a former lake bottom, the layout of Missoula is relatively flat and surrounded by steep hills. Evidence of the city of Missoula's lake-bottom past can be seen in the form of ancient horizontal wave-cut shorelines on nearby Mount Sentinel and Mount Jumbo.[32] At the location of present-day University of Montana, the lake once had a depth of 950 feet (290 m).[33] The Clark Fork River enters the Missoula Valley from the east through Hellgate Canyon after joining the nearby Blackfoot River 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, thus is often described as being the "hub of five valleys".[7]

The median income for a household in the city was $30,366, and for a family was $42,103. Males had a median income of $30,686 versus $21,559 for females. The per capita income for the city was $17,166. About 11.7% of families and 19.7% of the population were below the poverty line, including 20.5% of those under age 18 and 9.3% of those age 65 or over. About 40.3% of Missoula residents age 25 and older have a bachelor's or advanced college degree.

Missoula began as a trading post in the 1860s situated along the Mullan Military Road to take advantage of the first route across the Bitterroot Mountains to the plains of Eastern Washington. Its designation as county seat in 1866 and location of the hastily built Fort Missoula in 1877 ensured Missoula's status as a regional commercial center, a status further consolidated in 1883 with the arrival of the Northern Pacific Railway.[46] The railroad expanded Missoula's trade area to cover a 150-mile radius, and Missoula's location as the railway's division point and repair shops provided hundreds of jobs. When the railway began expanding again in 1898, increased freight shipments came through the city, and with the arrival of the Milwaukee Road and regional office for the U.S. Forest Service, as well as the opening of the Flathead Indian Reservation to settlement all within a couple years of each other beginning in 1908, the economy began to expand rapidly.[47]^: 36

Lumber mills were originally built to provide construction-grade materials for homes and businesses, but then expanded to entice and then meet the demands of the railroad; they profited from an increase in demand from railroad expansion and the nation at large. The Bonner mill, owned the Northern Pacific and Copper King Marcus Daly, became the largest producer of lumber in the northwest. In 1908, Missoula's location as both a major lumber producer and a regional commercial center helped land the city the regional office for the newly establish U.S. Forest Service, created to help manage the nation's timber supply.[47]^: 41 Over the next century, Missoula's various lumber industries was consolidated under various entities such as the Anaconda Company in the 1970s and Champion International Paper through the 1980s until most were under control of Plum Creek Timber, all the while demand in timber dropped.[48] In 2007, a downward spiral of Missoula's lumber industry began with the closure of a plywood plant in Bonner, the closure of Bonner's sawmill in 2008, and the closing of the Smurfit-Stone Container pulp mill in 2010.[49]

Since opening in 1895, the University of Montana has had a major impact on the development of Missoula's economy. In addition to the economic advantage from accommodating the student body, it gave the city an educated workforce not available in most of the state.[46] The university has a close relationship with the city as Missoula's largest employer and with the millions of dollars the school brings into the city through visitors of school-sponsored sporting and cultural events.[50][51] The university also houses Missoula's only business incubator, the Montana Technology Enterprise Center, and several start-up businesses.[52]

Missoula is the hub of its Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) economic area, which includes the Montana counties of Flathead, Lake, Lincoln, Mineral, Missoula, Ravalli, and Sanders.[53] As of 2011, the BEA listed the economic area population at 306,050.[54] Key businesses sectors serving the area include health care, retail shopping, transportation, financial services, government and social services, education, events, arts and culture. Health care in particular is one of Missoula's fastest growing industries with St. Patrick Hospital (western Montana's only level-II trauma center) and the Community Medical Center, already the city's second- and third-largest employers behind the university.[50] About 55% of employment in Missoula is made up of the service and retail sectors. Export industries are concentrated in heavy and civil engineering, construction, beverage production, technical services, truck transportation, and forestry-, logging-, and wood-related industries. In addition to nearly 4 million out-of-state visitors annually, which makes tourism a significant aspect of the Missoula economy, Missoula also is home to a vibrant sector of alternative healthcare.[55][56]

As of 2013, Missoula ranked 299 nationally in gross metropolitan product with an output of $5 billion,[57] while the city's total personal income ranked 333 at $4.18 billion, an increase of more than 47% since 2003.[58] As of 2013, per capita personal income ranked 239 at $37,397 a year, 84% of the national average.[58] The Missoula metropolitan area's unemployment rate was 3.7% as of June 2015, dropping nearly 0.8% in the twelve months prior.[59]

Missoula, often considered the cultural center of Montana,[60] is the location of the state's first university, and an eclectic mix of loggers, hippies, college students, sports fans, and retirees.[61] Community events generally take place downtown either outdoors or in one of the several downtown buildings listed on the National Historic Registry.[62]

Since 2006, the River City Roots Festival has been an event each August with music, beer, food, and art, and generally attracts crowds of 15,000.[63][64] The longest-standing event downtown has been the Missoula Farmers Market that was founded in 1972,[65] which provides an outlet for Western Montana produce on Saturday mornings from May to October as well as Tuesday evenings from July to early September.[66] An arts and crafts People's Market and a Clark Fork Market run concurrently.[67] Downtown hosts "First Friday Missoula", a gallery walk on the first Friday of the month to feature local art from museums and galleries,[68] such as that of Monte Dolack. Missoula celebrates "First Night Missoula" on New Year's Eve, which includes food and live entertainment.[69] The "Festival of the Book" to celebrate the literature of the American West was rebranded the "Montana Book Festival" in 2015.[70] Missoula's two historic theatres both hold annual film festivals: the Roxy hosting the International Wildlife Film Festival,[71] established in 1977 as the first juried wildlife film festival in the world;[72] and since 2003, the Wilma accommodating the largest film event in Montana, the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival.[73]

In performance arts, the Missoula Community Theatre has held performances of musical and nonmusical plays since 1977,[74] with its affiliated Missoula Children's Theatre also acting as an international touring program that visits nearly 1,000 communities per year around the world.[75] Missoula is also home to a number of modern dance companies, including Bare Bait Dance[76] and Headwaters Dance Company.[77] Rocky Mountain Ballet Theatre and Garden City Ballet are also based in Missoula.

The Montana Museum of Art & Culture, which became a state museum in 2001, is one Montana's oldest cultural reserves, having begun in 1894; its permanent collection houses more than 10,000 original works.[78] The Missoula Museum of Art is housed in a former Carnegie library; it features contemporary art and annually features 20–25 group and solo exhibits.[79] Fort Missoula is home to the Historic Museum, dedicated to preserving the history of Western Montana, and to the Rocky Mountain Museum of Military History[80][81] and the Northern Rockies Heritage Center.[82] The National Museum of Forest Service History is constructing the National Conservation Legacy and Education Center in Missoula, too.[21]

Ad for Moose Drool Brown Ale

Opened in 1987, Missoula's Bayern Brewing is the oldest active brewery in Montana.[83] Big Sky Brewing opened in 1995 and with a production over 38,000 barrels in 2008, it is by far Montana's largest brewery, and produces the best-selling beer brewed in Montana, Moose Drool Brown Ale.[84][85] Missoula has also been home to Kettle House Brewing since 1995 and Draught Works opened in 2011. Big Sky, Bayern, and Kettlehouse represent the first-, second-, and third-largest breweries, respectively, in Montana.[86] Also in 2011, Tamarack Brewing and Flathead Lake Brewing Company from nearby Lake County opened pub houses at downtown Missoula locations. The city also holds annual the Garden City Brewfest and Winterfest, and also periodically hosts the Montana Brewers Festival.[87][88]

The Clay Studio of Missoula is a non-profit ceramic-arts center, which provides education and a community access clay studio.[89]

Montana Grizzlies football at Washington–Grizzly Stadium

Missoula plays host to a variety of intercollegiate, youth, and amateur sports organizations in addition to a minor league baseball team. The Montana Grizzlies' football and basketball teams of the University of Montana have the highest attendance. The Montana Grizzlies football team has a successful program within the NCAA D-1 FCS level. Their home games at Washington–Grizzly Stadium have a near 90% winning percentage and average over 25,000 spectators in attendance. All games are televised throughout Montana. The Grizzlies men's and Lady Griz basketball teams have also been successful at the conference level, where they both rank at or near the top in attendance, about 4,000 and 3,000, respectively, and play their home games at Dahlberg Arena.[90][91][92]

Missoula is home to the Missoula PaddleHeads who play in the Rocky Mountain-based Pioneer Baseball League. They play their home games at Ogren Park at Allegiance Field.

Since 1977, Missoula has also held "Maggotfest", a festival-style rugby tournament hosted by the Missoula Maggots Rugby Club the first weekend in May. The non-elimination tournament focuses on the fun aspect of the game, attracting 36 teams (male and female) from around the United States and Canada. In regular-season play, the Missoula Maggots compete as part of the Montana Rugby Union alongside another local rugby team, the University of Montana Jesters.[93]

The Thomas Meagher Hurling Club[94] are also based in Missoula and play in the Northwestern division of the USGAA. The club are named after the late Irish nationalist and former acting Territorial Governor of Montana, Thomas Francis Meagher.

The city has over 400 acres (160 ha) of parkland, 22 miles (35 km) of trails, and nearly 5,000 acres (2,000 ha) of conserved open space.[13] Located at the confluence of three rivers (the Clark Fork, Bitterroot, and Blackfoot), the area is also popular for white water rafting and, thanks largely to the novel and subsequent film A River Runs Through It by Missoula native Norman Maclean, is well known for its fly fishing. Additionally, Missoula has two aquatic parks,[13] multiple golf courses, is home to the Adventure Cycling Association, and hosts what Runner's World called the "best overall" marathon in the U.S.[95][96] There are also three ski areas within 100 miles (160 km): Montana Snowbowl, Discovery Ski Area, and Lost Trail Powder Mountain. Slightly farther away are Lookout Pass, Blacktail Mountain, and Big Mountain.[97]

A system of public parks was developed in Missoula in 1902 with the donation by lumber baron Thomas Greenough and his wife Tessie. They gave a 42-acre (17 ha) tract of land along Rattlesnake Creek for Greenough Park, on the condition that "the land forever be used as a park and for park purposes to which the people of Missoula may . . . find a comfortable, romantic and poetic retreat".[47]^: 110 In a follow-up nine years later in a letter to the Missoulian, he stressed his interest in having the park remain in as close to a native state as possible.[98] That request, along with the discovery that non-native Norway maples were inhibiting the growth of native trees and shrubs such as cottonwoods, ponderosa pines, and Rocky Mountain maples, led to the controversial decision to remove Norway maples from the park with the hope of returning it to its natural state.[36][99]

In 1924, Bonner Park was created out of John L. Bonner's estate near the university. Today's park has multiple athletic fields and courts, and band shell used by the Missoula City band through the summer.[100] The Kiwanis club set up a Kiwanis Park downtown in 1934, making it the first of a string of parks that line both sides of the Clark Fork River. One of those parks on the southern bank of the river is McCormick Park, which was created with WPA funds out of surplus highway land, a parcel from the American Hide and Fur Company, and land donated from the Kate McCormick estate. The 26-acre (11 ha) park, named for Washington J. McCormick and his wife, is home to a skate park, aquatics center, a free bike check-out, and a children's fishing pond.[101] Other popular parks include the Jacobs Island Bark Park, a designated area for dogs to play off-leash; the Montana State veterans' memorial rose garden;[102] Waterwise Garden, a "living laboratory" garden utilizing water conservation techniques; and Splash Montana Waterpark at Playfair Park.

Missoula county courthouse

Missoula's system of government has changed four times since 1883, when an aldermanic form of government was approved with the town charter. The city adopted a commission-council form of government in 1911 with the opening of new City Hall and a council–manager government in 1954 before returning to an aldermanic form of government in 1959. Since January 1, 1997, Missoula has been governed in accordance with the Missoula City Charter, which calls for a mayor–council system of government.[111]

The current system comprises a mayor and city treasurer elected in a citywide vote and 12 city council members who must reside in and are elected from one of six wards, with each ward having two council members. All positions are nominally nonpartisan. Council members and the mayor are elected to four-year terms with council-member elections being staggered to allow only one member from each ward to up for re-election. No term limits exist for either position.[112][113]

Missoula's state legislative delegation is the second-largest in the Montana Legislature and is represented by districts 91–100 in the Montana House of Representatives and districts 46–50 in the Montana Senate.[114] Having 14 Democrats and only one Republican in its state legislative delegation, Missoula is known as a more liberal area than the rest of the state.[109][110]

Though Missoula's political leanings may not be unique for a college town, its initiative to make marijuana possession the lowest priority of law enforcement in 2006,[115] and symbolic resolutions calling on Congress to withdraw from Iraq in 2007,[116] and to amend the U.S. Constitution to declare that "corporations are not human beings" in 2011,[117] often put it at odds with the rest of the state. 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[118][119] and the attempt to repeal the anti-discrimination ordinance died in the State Senate.[120]

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).[121] The Montana Legislature and Governor Greg Gianforte blocked this decision the following year, repealing the sales tax provision from state law.[122]

The University of Montana campus, showing Mount Sentinel with The M logo

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 William H. H. Dickinson (the first couple married in Missoula) and was replaced by Elizabeth Countryman, who later married Missoula's first mayor, Frank H. Woody.[123][124] The first public high school was opened in 1904, but was converted back to a grade school after the A. J. Gibson-designed Missoula County High School (now Hellgate High School) was opened in 1908.[125] 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.[125] In 1974, the private Loyola Sacred Heart Catholic High School was created from a merger of the all-girls Sacred Heart Academy (est. 1873) and the all-boys Loyola High School (est. 1912).[126] In 1980, Missoula's third public high school, Big Sky, was established.[127]

Missoula's public schools are part of the Missoula County Public School districts 1, 4, 20, and 23.[128] 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),[129] and three public schools serving kindergarten to 8th grade.[128] Missoula also has several private schools including an international school, religious-affiliated schools, as well as Next Step Prep, a theater academy high school operated by the Missoula Children's Theatre.[130]

The University of Montana dominates higher education in Missoula.[51] The university, established in 1893, was Montana's first, and has the state's second-largest enrollment,[131] with 12,922 students as of 2015.[132] The campus houses six colleges and three schools including Montana's first and only law school, the Alexander Blewett III School of Law at the University of Montana. The university is also the location of the state's Regional Federal Depository Library,[133] and houses the state Arboretum.[134] 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.[135]

Missoula has a public library, the Missoula Public Library.[136]

Jeannette Rankin, the first woman in Congress, was born and raised in Missoula.

U.S. Senator and longest-serving Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield

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,[14] the first woman in Congress, was born and raised in Missoula while Senators Mike Mansfield,[177] the U.S.'s longest serving Senate Majority Leader, and Max Baucus,[178] 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,[179] and former Milwaukee Bucks coach Larry Krystkowiak.[180]

Actor Dana Carvey,[181] filmmaker David Lynch,[182] and award-winning biologist Leroy Hood[183] were born in Missoula, while Carroll O'Connor[184] and J. K. Simmons[185] attended the University of Montana. Composer David Maslanka (1943-2017) lived in Missoula,[186] and musician Jeff Ament,[187] and musician, vlogger, and author Hank Green[188] reside in Missoula. Academically, Missoula has been home to Nobel Prize winners Harold C. Urey[189] and Steve Running[190] as well as 20th century Montana historian K. Ross Toole.[191]

Noted names in literature include Native American poet James Welch,[192] crime novelist James Crumley,[193] former head of the University of Montana's Creative Writing Program Richard Hugo,[194] William Kittredge, a western writer and professor of creative writing at the University of Montana at Missoula, and Norman Maclean,[195] 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.

Missoula has two[196] sister cities, as designated by Sister Cities International:

• 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.[197] 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.[196][198]

. . . the world outside, which my brother and I soon discovered was full of bastards, the number increasing rapidly the farther one gets from Missoula, Montana.

— Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It [199]

Author Norman Maclean grew up in Missoula and wrote about it in his 1976 autobiographical novella A River Runs Through It.[200] 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.[201][202] 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.[203][204][205][206][207] 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."[208] 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.[209][210] 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.[211] 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,"[212] and that "the overall effect [of the city] was oddly unsettling; the streets too open for comfort, the town too closed in, inducing mild claustrophobia and agoraphobia at the same time",[212] he notes the literary heritage of the city and its reputation as a "kindly town" (evidenced by its being a place where "odds and ends naturally collected and cohered").

Missoula is mentioned as being the closest city to the fictional Hope County in Far Cry 5. The game's second mission involves the player trying to escape the county to reach Missoula.[213]

• USS Missoula, 2 ships

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Missoula, Montana.

Wikivoyage has a travel guide for Missoula, Montana.

Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article "Missoula".

• Official website
• Missoula Visitors Bureau
• Missoula Chamber of Commerce
• Missoula, Montana at Curlie
• "Missoula" . Collier's New Encyclopedia. 1921.
• Missoula Collection Guide (University of Montana Archives)
• City of Missoula (Mont.) Records, 1883-2009 (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