Montana Park of the Week: Frenchtown Pond State Park

Located about ten miles northwest of Missoula, MT, Frenchtown Pond State Park is a 41 acre, day-use recreational area where you can swim, boat, and fish. The pond itself is a natural spring-fed lake with a maximum depth of about 18 feet.

A variety of fish, including sunfish, bass, and bullhead, provide fair catches throughout the year. Frenchtown Pond State Park is also a favorite place for visitors to practice stand-up paddle-boarding, kayaking, canoeing, and snorkeling. Frenchtown Pond became a state park in 1972. They often host local events for youth and families.

The Frenchtown area was settled by French-Canadian settlers in 1858, who were pushed out of their original settlements by political unrest in the west.

The area is home to many scattered ghost towns which fell when the local mining boom cooled off. The most notable of these ghost towns is Hellgate, the first major settlement. The land was rich with gold and fur, the valley was lined with timber.

The area flourished and is considered to be the home of the first (state-legal) wedding of white-American settlers in the state of Montana (1862) and the birthplace of the first white-American “Montanan” earlier that same year.

Before this, the area was predominately French-Canadian and Native American, which frequently settled in the area north of Frenchtown in the Flathead Indian reservation. Home to the Bitterroot Salish, Kootenai, and Pend d’Oreilles tribes (also known as the “Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Nation”).

Hellgate became a rough and tumbled kind of place and was frequently ravaged by the infamous Henry Plummer Gang. Vigilantes roamed wild dispensing sudden and violent “justice” whenever they felt it necessary.

When a scuffle with some of the Pend d’Oreilles tribe led to the death of a prospector, the tribe forced their chief to surrender his son. After a very brief trial, they hung the boy in town.

As the area prospered, trade moved southeast towards what is now Missoula, MT. Camels were often used to transport goods between the two places.

The town fell to ruin almost overnight as people packed up and moved south to the more economically stable Missoula, which acquired the county seat from Hellgate in 1865, a mere ten years after its official settlement and only five short years from when Hellgate was granted the title.