10 | City of Missoula time when the environmental picture wasn’t so finely focused. To put that in proper perspective, it is necessary to delve back to an era when mining and timber operations accounted for so much of the life here. Long before it gained prominence as a city, this area was simply considered an extension of the Washington Territory, until a small settlement known as the Hellgate Trading Post was established in 1860. This trading post grew along with a proliferation of mill operations that supported the increasing encroachment of Western settlers, and over the century of comings-and-goings that followed, lumbering continued to comprise the lion’s share of economic activities here. In fact, this would become the site of the headquarters for the U.S. Forest Service. While the large scale processing of timber lefts scars on the terrain, the sheer number of smoke stacks took a toll on air quality. Mayor Engen recalls that as a young boy growing up in Missoula, he participated in one of the early studies involving air quality, a process that required him and other students to take turns breathing into a tube. Analysts were ultimately trying to determine the extent to which people’s lungs were polluted. As Engen says, “It was one thing to always smell the smoke in the air, but you could feel it burning in your lungs too.” Area waterways were also impacted by The annual variety of art exhibitions, concerts and community festivals have led to Missoula’s designation as the cultu
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