LaHood Park

In August 1840, Pierre Jean De Smet, a Catholic missionary of Belgian birth, camped near the mouth of the Boulder River with the Salish Indians and celebrated the holy sacrifice of the Mass. Father De Smet left the Indians soon after to go to St. Louis. He returned the following year and established the original St. Mary’s Mission in the Bitter Root Valley, hereditary home of the Salish. Fearless and zealous, his many experiences during the pioneer days have been chronicled and form a most interesting chapter in the frontier annals of Montana. Nearly ninety years later, in 1928, Shadan “Dan” LaHood built a hotel, gas station, and auto camp here to take advantage of tourist traffic on the newly opened highway through the Jefferson River Canyon. Five years after building the hotel, he added several motel units and a roadside café to his operation. A tireless supporter of President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal relief programs, LaHood donated the land adjacent to the hotel for a Civilian Conservation Corps camp in the 1930s. The boys based at the CCC camp improved access to and within Lewis and Clark Caverns, making it one of Montana’s premier attractions. LaHood’s hotel burned to the ground in 2001.