MISSOULA  , a

city and the county-seat of Missoula county, Montana, U.S.A., on the Clark Fork of the Columbia (here called the Missoula river), about 125 M . W.N.W. of Helena . Pop . (1900), 4366 (1020 foreign-born) ; (Ig1o), 12,869 . It is served by the Chicago, Milwaukee & Puget Sound railway, and by the Northern Pacific railway, which has shops here and of which Missoula is a division headquarters . There is an electric railway from Missoula to Hamilton, about 48 m. south . The Northern Pacific railway maintains a large hospital here, and St Patrick's hospital is maintained by sisters of charity . Missoula is about 3200 ft. above sea-level, with Mount Jumbo immediately north, and University Mountain immediately south of the Clark Fork, and the Bitter Root range to the west . The city is situated on the bed of a prehistoric lake . Missoula is the seat of the Sacred Heart academy (for girls), of a Christian Brothers' school (for boys), of the Garden City commercial college, and of the state university (founded in 1893, and opened in 1895), which occupies a campus of 40 acres . On the Bitter Root river, 4 M. distant, is the United States army post, Fort Missoula . Missoula has considerable trade with the surrounding country in farming, fruit-growing, lumbering and mining .

The Clark Fork furnishes

water power, and at Bonner, 6 m. east, is the Clark dam (28 ft.), which furnishes electric power . Missoula was founded in 1864, and chartered as a city in 1887 .