Fort Owen

Built in 1937. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1970.

From the record

“Fort Owen State Park is a historic preservation area owned by the state of Montana in the United States, located on the northern outskirts of the town of Stevensville, Montana. The park is named for Fort Owen, a mission and later trading post established in 1841 and named for trader John Owen.”
Wikipedia article Fort Owen State Park, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 92 National Register listings published here for Ravalli County · listed in 1970 · category: Building · built in 1937.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service

The listing

What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 1 building, 1 site as contributing to the listing.
Address. About 0.5 mi. NW of Stevensville, Stevensville, 59870
When was it listed? October 1970
Category. building
Census division. Stevensville
When was it built? 1937
National Register reference number. 70000363 - the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.

Fires near this property

71 since 1992

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 71 fires within 5 miles of Fort Owen between 1992 and 2020, burning about 1,183 acres in total. 19 started naturally. 2 were recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause	Fires
Debris and open burning	22
Natural	19
Recreation and ceremony	16
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	10
Arson/incendiarism	2
Fireworks	1
Smoking	1

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

Date	Cause	Size	Reported by	Name on the report
9 September 2000	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Bitterroot National Forest	BLACKJACK
7 September 2019	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	RavaIIi County	203 CACTUS TRL
4 September 1999	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Bitterroot National Forest	WARMING
29 September 2008	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Bitterroot National Forest	BASS CREEK
25 September 2014	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Bitterroot National Forest	SITE 22
25 September 2003	Debris and open burning	70 acres	Southwestern Land Office	not named
2 September 2001	Debris and open burning	1.0 acres	Southwestern Land Office	not named
12 September 2006	Arson/incendiarism	under an acre	Bitterroot National Forest	KOOTENAI 2

Every fire recorded in Ravalli County

Mines and quarries near this property

8 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 8 workings within 5 miles of Fort Owen: 5 unknowns, 3 occurrences. None of them still produces. What was taken out: Titanium, Pumice, Garnet, Titanium, Metal, Thorium, Zirconium, Iron, Tungsten. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Site	Commodity	Status	Recorded
Main River Valley	Iron, Titanium, Zirconium, Thorium	Unknown
Mccalla Creek	Titanium, Iron, Zirconium	Unknown
Mccalla Creek Placer Area	Garnet, Titanium, Metal, Thorium, Zirconium, Iron	Occurrence	Garnet, Ilmenite, Magnetite, Monazite, Zircon
Sharrot Creek	Titanium, Thorium	Unknown
Silverthorn Creek	Titanium, Zirconium, Iron, Thorium	Unknown
Strife Prospect	Tungsten	Occurrence
Bitteroot Valley	Pumice	Unknown
Unnamed Location	Pumice	Occurrence

Every working recorded in Ravalli County

Storms near this property

21 since 1995

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Stevensville, the town this property stands in, in 21 storm reports between 1995 and 2024: 10 thunderstorm wind, 8 hail, 2 heavy rain, 1 flood. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.

When	Event	Place named	Harm	What the report says
August 2002	Hail	Stevensville	$2,000,000	no account filed
November 2006	Flood	Stevensville	$60,000	Kootenai Creek flooded from heavy rain and snow melt washing a bridge out. Minor small stream flooding was reported elsewhere in the county.
July 2024	Thunderstorm Wind	Stevensville	$25,000	A weather station at the Stevensville Airport reported the gust to 66 mph originating out of the northwest. Multiple power line and pole issues were reported in the northern Ravalli County due to the winds. It appears that the Stevensville area was the furthest south extent of the derecho winds, while the Missoula area took a direct hit.
August 2007	Thunderstorm Wind	Stevensville	$20,000	A severe thunderstorm moved across the Burnt Fork area near Stevensville during the evening hours and blew the roof off of a building.
July 2012	Thunderstorm Wind	Stevensville	$15,000	A strong thunderstorm moved through Ravalli County, snapping numerous trees four to eight feet above the ground. The trees were willows, poplars, and cottonwoods.
June 2022	Hail	Stevensville	-	Several reports of 1.00 inch hail.
August 2015	Thunderstorm Wind	Stevensville	-	A fence with 5 x 5 inch posts was blown down. Wind estimates near 60 mph.
July 2014	Heavy Rain	Stevensville	-	A person from the public reported 0.50 of rainfall that fell in 15 minutes. A person from Florence measured 0.74 that fell in 15 minutes as well.
August 2010	Thunderstorm Wind	Stevensville	-	An amateur radio operator reported a wind gust to 58 mph.
July 2008	Hail	Stevensville	-	A trained spotter reported 1 1/2 inch diameter hail with a passing storm.
June 2007	Thunderstorm Wind	Stevensville	-	Public reported wind gusts estimated at 60 mph. Several large tree brnaches were broken off trees in the area.
June 1995	Thunderstorm Wind	Stevensville	-	A tree was blown onto a house in Stevensville.
June 2004	Hail	Stevensville	-	no account filed
August 2002	Thunderstorm Wind	Stevensville	-	no account filed
August 2002	Heavy Rain	Stevensville	-	no account filed
August 2002	Hail	Stevensville	-	no account filed
July 2002	Hail	Stevensville	-	no account filed
July 2002	Hail	Stevensville	-	no account filed
June 2001	Thunderstorm Wind	Stevensville	-	no account filed
August 1997	Hail	Stevensville	-	no account filed
September 1996	Thunderstorm Wind	Stevensville	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Ravalli County

Map coverage status

No historic map-sheet match is published for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary. Browse the county's mapped places while that work is pending.

Listed places nearby

6 within 8 miles

Other National Register properties close enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties to their map sheets.

Property	Distance	Listed
John McLaughlin House	0.5 miles	1991
Louis May House	0.6 miles	1991
Charles May House	0.6 miles	1991
Joseph Fisher House	0.6 miles	1991
Bass Mansion	0.6 miles	1978
Gleason Building	0.6 miles	1991

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 70000363 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Ravalli County	All 92 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.