1859 Petition for Bitterroot County, Montana
In the winter of 1859 a petition had been addressed to the legislature of Washington by the settlers of Bitterroot Valley and the Flathead agency, to have a county set off, to be called Bitterroot County. This petition had seventy-seven names attached, and chiefly these of the Mullan wagon-road company, who could hardly be called settlers, although a few names of actual pioneers are to be found among them. The petition does not appear to have been presented until the session of 1860-1, when two counties, called Shoshone and Missoula, were created out of the region east of the later … Read more