The New International Encyclopædia/Missoula
MISSOULA, mĭ-zo͞o′lȧ. A city and the county-seat of Missoula County, Mont., 125 miles west by north of Helena; on the Hell Gate River, and on the Northern Pacific Railroad (Map: Montana, C 2). It is the seat of the State University, and has a public library and hospitals, one maintained by the Northern Pacific Railroad. The city is in a farming and fruit-growing, lumbering, and mining region, for which it is an important distributing centre, and controls a considerable trade in grain, fruit, and produce. There are a brewery and bottling works, and railroad shops of the Northern Pacific, founded in 1864, Missoula was first incorporated in 1887, the charter of that year now operating to provide for a mayor, chosen biennially, and a unicameral council. Population, in 1890, 3426; in 1900, 4366.