Major John Owen: From Walla Walla to Fort Benton and Beyond

MHS Museum technician Vic Reiman recounts the experiences of “Major” John Owen, who settled in the Bitterroot Valley in 1850 and, for the next twenty years, kept journals detailing his daily life. Owen made numerous trading trips throughout the region, and today his accounts of those travels provide an unparalleled source of information about western Montana’s residents and events during the 1850s.