Saleesh House

In November 1809, famed British North West Company agent and explorer David Thompson built a trading post about five miles east of here near the mouth of the Thompson River. Strategically located on a well-worn aboriginal trail, Saleesh House was the second trading post to be constructed in what is now Montana. In the early nineteenth century, the fur trade was literally a cut-throat business with competing companies vying to establish trade relations with the Indian tribes. In this case, the Nor’Westers successfully beat the rival Hudson’s Bay Company by being the first to build a trading post in Salish territory. Saleesh House consisted of three simple log buildings with mud and grass roofs that leaked in rainy weather. The Salish were the post’s primary customers, bartering beaver and muskrat pelts for weapons and other trade goods. The Salish trusted Thompson and called him Koo-Koo-Sint, Star Looker, because of his interest in astronomy. Saleesh House remained open until the 1820s after the North West and Hudson’s Bay Companies merged. Blackfeet hostility forced the company to abandon the post. Saleesh House melted back into the forest and was lost to history until rediscovered several years ago by University of Montana archaeologists.