Hellgate Canyon is a canyon in

Missoula County Missoula County is located in the State of Montana. As of the 2020 census, the population was 117,922, making it Montana's third-most populous county. Its county seat and largest city is Missoula. The county was founded in 1860. Missoula Coun ...

Montana Montana () is a state in the Mountain West division of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota and South Dakota to the east, Wyoming to the south, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columb ...

, formed by the Clark Fork River. It is located just to the east of

Missoula Missoula ( ; fla, label=Salish language, Séliš, Nłʔay, lit=Place of the Small Bull Trout, script=Latn; kut, Tuhuⱡnana, script=Latn) is a city in the U.S. state of Montana; it is the county seat of Missoula County, Montana, Missoula Cou ...

, and is approximately fifty miles long. The entrance to the canyon is known as Hell's Gate.

Name

Hellgate Canyon's name is a reference to an ambush that occurred there, in which the Flathead Indians were defeated by the

Blackfeet The Blackfeet Nation ( bla, Aamsskáápipikani, script=Latn, ), officially named the Blackfeet Tribe of the Blackfeet Indian Reservation of Montana, is a federally recognized tribe of Siksikaitsitapi people with an Indian reservation in Mon ...

. The evidence of these ambushes was known as the "gates of hell", which led to the canyon acquiring its current name.

Historical significance

Hellgate Canyon contains some ancient

pictograph A pictogram, also called a pictogramme, pictograph, or simply picto, and in computer usage an icon, is a graphic symbol that conveys its meaning through its pictorial resemblance to a physical object. Pictographs are often used in writing and g ...

s estimated to be about 5,000 years old. Lewis and Clark passed through Hellgate Canyon during their expedition through the

Western United States The Western United States (also called the American West, the Far West, and the West) is the region comprising the westernmost states of the United States. As American settlement in the U.S. expanded westward, the meaning of the term ''the We ...

. Later in the 19th century, Carrie Strahorn, also an explorer, wrote about a stagecoach ride she took in the area in 1878. She described, among other things, a "veritable Lover’s Lane" formed above the canyon by an arch of wild

rose A rose is either a woody perennial flowering plant of the genus ''Rosa'' (), in the family Rosaceae (), or the flower it bears. There are over three hundred species and tens of thousands of cultivars. They form a group of plants that can be ...

s. During the mid-19th century, as Montana was further colonized, the canyon became a major strategic corridor in the region, and the

Mullan Road Mullan Road was the first wagon road to cross the Rocky Mountains to the Inland of the Pacific Northwest. It was built by U.S. Army troops under the command of Lt. John Mullan, between the spring of 1859 and summer 1860. It led from Fort Ben ...

was routed through it. The

Northern Pacific Railroad The Northern Pacific Railway was a transcontinental railroad that operated across the northern tier of the western United States, from Minnesota to the Pacific Northwest. It was approved by Congress in 1864 and given nearly of land grants, whi ...

and

Milwaukee Railroad The Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad (CMStP&P), often referred to as the "Milwaukee Road" , was a Class I railroad that operated in the Midwest and Northwest of the United States from 1847 until 1986. The company experienced ...

were later routed along a similar path. French-Canadian settlers in Montana thought that the local Native Americans, especially those of the Flathead Nation, traveled through Hellgate Canyon to hunt for bison.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hellgate Canyon Canyons and gorges of Montana Geography of Missoula County, Montana

Name

Historical significance

See also

References