Archives West Finding Aid

Around 1886 the town of Bonner, Montana, was founded to provide housing for sawmill employees and their families. The town grew to include a company store, a post office, a school that also served as a Masonic Lodge, Our Savior's Lutheran Church, St. Ann's Catholic Church, the showplace Margaret's Hotel, and, by the mid-fifties, a thriving George's Cafe.

The original mill and town property had been purchased by the Montana Improvement Company, later called the Blackfoot Milling Company, in 1884. By 1910 the Anaconda Copper Company purchased the site and mill, and renamed it Anaconda Forest Products. In 1972 the Anaconda Company sold their lumber operations in Bonner.

Located one-half mile from Bonner, Milltown was established a few years before the Bonner Mill was built in 1886. In 1910-1911 the Western Lumber Company of Lothrop, Montana, relocated in Milltown. They sold to the Anaconda Company in 1928. Milltown, an ethnically diverse community, grew to include a library, butcher shop, pool hall, saloons, beauty parlors, a grocery store, and service stations.

The Milltown Dam was located about seven miles east of Missoula, Montana, at the confluence of the Blackfoot River with the Clark Fork River. Copper mining tycoon William A. Clark financed construction of the dam from 1904-1908 to supply hydroelectricity to his sawmills in Bonner. The Milltown Dam had only been completed a few months when a record flood on the Clark Fork River washed a ton of toxic mining sediment downstream, where it settled at the base of the dam. Originally the power produced by the dam was used by the mills; the communities of Bonner, Milltown, and Missoula; the street car; and even some areas in the Bitterroot Valley. In 1929 ownership transferred to the Montana Power Company. Montana Power Company was purchased by NorthWestern Energy in 2000.

Forgotten for years, by the late twentieth century the toxic mining pollution gained the attention of area residents, recreation enthusiasts, environmentalists, the EPA, and financially responsible entities. Different solutions were suggested and finally, almost a century after the flood, remediation, including the removal of the dam was initiated.

The History and Culture Committee of the Milltown Redevelopment Working Group has worked to preserve the history of the area including the towns of Milltown, Bonner and West Riverside. The Milltown Oral History Project is part of that preservation effort.

These interviews were funded by the Mathew Hansen Endowment through the Wilderness Institute of The University of Montana, and conducted by Caitlin DeSilvey and Minie Smith.