Milltown Bridge
Photo courtesy: MTOT
Rattlesnake National Recreational Area & Wilderness
Photo courtesy: Benjamin Irey
Milltown, near Bonner, was called Riverside when it was established in 1893 because of its proximity to the Clark Fork and Blackfoot Rivers. The name was changed to avoid confusion with a community of the same name near Butte. At first, in recognition of the many persons of Finnish decent living there, a new name of Finntown was chosen, but later residents changed it to Milltown. A lumber mill was erected in 1886 by A. B. Hammond, who sold the mill to Marcus Daly in 1898. (from Cheney's Names on the Face of Montana, Mountain Press Publishing Company)
Milltown is near Missoula and the Rattlesnake Recreation Area and Wilderness. With the major trailhead only 4.5 miles north of Missoula, the 61,000 acres of glaciated topography in the Rattlesnake Wilderness and National Recreation Area (RWNRA) form Montana's premier urban wilderness, blending the best of both wilderness and civilization. The U-shaped Rattlesnake basin is fed by more than fifty small creeks that begin as seeps from springs and melting snowbanks in the upper Wilderness portion of the NRA. Resting in the more than thirty high mountain lakes, crystal clear water then plunges down waterfalls to hanging valleys separated by sheer headwalls and carpets of Sub-Alpine fir, Lodgepole pine, and Spruce sloping down to open Douglas fir and Ponderosa pine parklands.
