This is apparently one of the original series of Captain Mullan monuments, of which I believe thirteen were made and placed along the Mullan Road, which stretched 642 miles from Fort Benton, MT to Fort Walla Walla, WA. Mullan surveyed and built the road in the years 1853 to 1860. It was the first road to cross the Rocky Mountains into the Pacific Northwest.
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. They were initially placed at various points along
The Mullan Road. This monument was apparently dedicated in 1916 and was moved from its original location to the Powell County Courthouse in the early 1980s (possibly the late 70s).
The relocation of this monument appears to have been a bicentennial project, as the base of the statue bears a bicentennial plaque.
The monument was originally located at the Milwaukee Railroad Depot on Milwaukee Avenue at Railroad Street in Deer Lodge, which generally followed the Old Mullan Road in the Deer Lodge area.