Fort Connah

The panel ends on descendants, and the family began with a marriage. Angus McDonald, a Scot, married Catherine at Fort Hall in 1842; her mother was Nez Perce and her father an Iroquois-French company man. She joined him at the post in the fall of 1847. Their son Duncan, born at the fort in 1849, was its clerk when it closed in 1871, and Angus came back to shut down the post he had finished, then took the property and retired there. He died in 1889. Catherine's stories, written down by Angus, are at the University of Montana.

What the plaque says

Fort Connah Construction of the last Hudson Bay Trading Post, within the present borders of the United States, was started here in 1846, and was completed in 1847 by Angus McDonald. Angus originally named the fort "Connen" after a river valley in his Scottish homeland, but later changed it to Connah for easier pronunciation by the Salish, Kootenai, Pend d' Orielle and other Indians in the area. Fort Connah was built about 1/2 mile east of here and remained an important trading center for the Indians until the U.S. Government forced the British owned company to abandon the post in 1871. At its height, Fort Connah consisted of only three buildings. The store house is the only original structure that still survives. The Mission Valley was thrown open for settlement in 1910. Prior to that time it was almost entirely virgin prairie, unplowed, unfenced and beautiful to see. You rode a saddle horse to get places. Some people wish it were still like that today. Many descendants of Angus McDonald still live in the Mission Valley.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• St. Ignatius Mission — 6.5 mi
  A brick church painted wall to ceiling by the mission cook, beside the boarding schools the mission ran for Native children.
• CSKT Bison Range — 8.0 mi
  The herd the tribes saved, the government forced them to sell, and the range they finally got back.
• Ninemile Remount Depot — 28 mi
  The Forest Service's mule ranch, built because the fires of 1929 ran out of packers.

More markers nearby

• The Mission Mountain Wilderness — 5.3 mi
• The Mission Valley — 8.5 mi
• The Flathead Indian Reservation — 10 mi
• The Salish and Pend d'Oreille People and the Jocko Valley — 19 mi