The Mullan Road was an important wagon road crossing the future states of Montana, Idaho, and Washington. It was surveyed and built during the 1850s and 1860s. Ultimately it is estimated that some 20,000 people, 6,000 horses and mules, 5,000 cattle and 83 wagons used the road during its first year.
Today the Mullan Road often remain ignored in light of more famous settlers routes like the Oregon and California trails, but it remains an important part of Washington's and Idaho's settlement history as it brought thousands of people to the Inland Empire region of the eastern parts of the former and the northern part of the latter.
Capt. John Mullan had first arrived in Washington Territory in the early 1850s with the express goal of developing a route to link Fort Benton to Fort Walla Walla. However, ensuring wars with the Yakima, Spokan, and other Indian nations delayed the development of the Mullan Road.
During 1859 and 1860 the final surveys were made and road construction began. Once completed settlers began to arrive in this region. Gold rushes throughout today's Northern Idaho and Northeast Washington brought in people seeking fortune. However, during the great railway boom of the 1880s, the Mullan Road faded away.
And John Mullan moved around the Western States trying to invest in companies but often these failed. He frequently moved his family from Washington Territory to San Francisco and then back to the East Coast where he passed away in Washington, DC.
But Mullan was not free of controversy in modern eyes. He believed in a white America where he questioned the value of going to war over slavery when he felt slaves were intrinsic to the future of the nation. In addition, he opposed the immigration of Asians to the United States.
During the first auto route era of the United States, the Mullan Road became an important touring route. It was roughly followed by the Yellowstone Trail. And along its course, many communities, including Wallace, erected these stone monuments to Capt. John Mullan for his accomplishment of developing the wagon road that helped settle the American Northwest.
The statue was designed by Western frontier artist Edgar S. Paxton and fabricated by Western Montana M & G Company, the original statues of Captain John Mullan were fourteen feet tall, cut from white Vermont marble and placed on concrete bases.
It is described by the Smithsonian as:
Standing figure of John Mullan, with his proper right hand holding the top of a gun barrel. The butt of the gun rests on the outside of his proper right foot. His proper left arm is bent at the elbow and his proper left hand rests on his proper left hip. A pistol is tucked in his belt. He has a beard and is wearing a hat. The figure stands on a small base that protrudes from an obelisk-shaped block behind him.
Inscriptions on the base:
Right side: Erected Under the Auspices of
the Historical Society of Idaho
and the Society of Montana Pioneers.
Gift of Wm. A. Clark Jr. of Butte, Montana
to the City of Wallace, 1918
Left side: Surveyor and Constructor
of the Military Road
from Fort Benton, Mont.
to Walla Walla, Wash.
completed 1862.
Front: Capt. John Mullan
Trail
1853-1855