Fort Owen

In the fall of 1850 John Owen, a thirty-two-year-old former Army sutler from Pennsylvania, came into the Bitterroot Valley and bought what was left of St. Mary's Mission from the departing Jesuits for $250 in cash. He named the place for himself and made it a trading post, the first stop for trappers, traders and travelers coming over the passes. Around it he ran a farm, a sawmill and a gristmill, and Fort Owen became a supply point and meeting place for the whole valley.

In the late 1850s he replaced the log stockade with walls of adobe brick. Then the country moved past it. When the Mullan Road opened in 1864 it ran through Hell Gate, near present Missoula, and left Fort Owen off the main route. Owen's debts mounted, and after his wife Nancy died in 1868 his health and mind gave way. In 1872 the fort was sold at a sheriff's auction to Washington J. McCormick, one of his creditors.

Little of the fort survives. The state park, about an acre at the north edge of Stevensville, keeps the fort's barracks building, with a small museum, and the outline of the old walls. It is open every day of the year.