The Milwaukee Road in Bonner - Milltown, MT
Posted by: Groundspeak Premium Member T0SHEA
N 46° 51.999 W 113° 52.388
12T E 281031 N 5194353
This historical marker is at a hiking trailhead at Milltown, south on I90 from Missoula by about five miles. The marker is beside Highway 210 about a half mile south of Milltown. It is beside a Milwaukee Road Caboose.
Waymark Code: WMKZ6P
Location: Montana, United States
Date Posted: 06/19/2014
Published By:Groundspeak Premium Member ZenPanda
Views: 5

THE MILWAUKEE ROAD IN BONNER

The trail you will be following is on the former right-of-way of the Big Blackfoot Line of the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul & Pacific Railroad, commonly known as The Milwaukee Road. It connected with the railroad's mainline at Bonner Jct. on the south bank of the Clark Fork River and extended 40 miles to Cottonwood in Powell County.

The Big Blackfoot Line was organized in 1910 as the Big Blackfoot railway and immediately acquired by The Milwaukee Road. First construction was from Bonner Jct. to McNamara, 11.47 miles in 1913. The Line served the Anaconda Copper Mining Company sawmill at Bonner (presently owned by Stimson Lumber) and a rich timber producing area.

From its roots in Wisconsin with first construction from Milwaukee to Waukesha in 1850, the Milwaukee Road grew to a transcontinental system of more than 10,000 miles with lines stretching from Louisville, Kentucky, to Portland, Oregon.

Its mainline through Montana was completed in 1909. After filing bankruptcy in 1977, the railroad retrenched to a Midwestern core system and then was acquired by the Soo Line Railroad in 1985. The Milwaukee's mainline through Montana was either sold to other railroads or abandoned in 1980. Except for about a mile of track in Bonner that was sold to the Burlington Northern now operated by Montana Rail Link, The Blackfoot Line was abandoned in 1977.
August 1999 R. Milton Clark
Describe the area and history:
It is beside the Railroad tracks in question and beside a caboose once used on the Milwaukee Road.


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