136 GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTERN UNITED STATES. 
The first permanent settlement in this region was made in 1841, 
when Father De Smet founded the Mission of St. Mary at the point 
where Stevensville is now located. He established the mission for the 
Salish or Flathead Indians, who then occupied the valley but who later 
were transferred farther north to a reservation which is crossed by the 
Northern Pacific in the vicinity of the towns of Ravalli and Dixon.’ 
Father De Smet was joined in 1843 by Father Anthony Ravalli, who 
labored faithfully with the Indians throughout a long and busy life. 
These two priests had great influence on the early settlement of this 
region, and their services have been commemorated by the naming of 
towns in their honor. 
It was to the entrance of the canyon above Missoula that the name 
Hell Gate was first applied. The Blackfeet Indians, residing on the 
plains east of the mountains, were noted fighters; and many were the 
forays they made through this canyon on the more peaceful Flatheads 
on the west. The French traders and trappers, on account of the 
devastation wrought by the marauding parties that emerged from the 
mouth of the canyon, called it Porte d’Enfer, which may be translated 
Hell Gate. 
The isolation of Missoula in the early days and its distance from the 
outside world are well illustrated by the slowness of returns from some 
of the elections; thus it is reported that the settlers in the Bitterroot 
Valley who voted in the presidential election of November, 1856, did 
not know the result until April, 1857, when an Oregon paper describing 
how Buchanan had been elected was brought into the valley. 
no beach lines have been found, but ex- identified, and it is possible that some of 
tensive terraces that probably record the 
height of the water and should be corre- 
developed at 
Haugan and Saltese, at an altitude of 
3,450 feet. It is true that some of these 
altitudes have not been accurately deter- 
mined, but there seems to be a gradual 
decrease in the altitude of the terraces 
toward the northwest that indicates a 
by the recent canyon cut by Clark Fork 
een ula and the mouth of St. 
Regis River. 
Glacial Lake Missoula had so transient 
an existenca that very little of the sedi- 
ment deposited in its waters can now be 
the sand and clay noted as Tertiary lake 
beds were laid down in Lake Missoula. 
? Oregon, which was 
Missoula, Mont. By an act of Congress 
approved March 2, 1853, the Territory of 
County, which 
had included this region, was divided, 
and Missoula County was organized, with 
the county seat at the store of Worden & 
Co. Mi County remained in Wash- 
ington Territory until Idaho was organ- 
ized, on March 3, 1863, when it became 
ization of Montana, in 1864, Missoula 
County became a part of that Territory. 
