Mullan Road A Feat Of 624 Miles Stump Records Military’s Work To Link Waterways

On July 4, 1861, a young Army officer stood in the dense forest of Idaho’s panhandle, watching one of his soldiers brand the date and initials “M.R.” into a tall pine tree.

During the previous two years, Capt. John Mullan had seen “M.R.” emblazoned 624 times, once for every mile of his Mullan Road.

Of course, the War Department never intended that the road be named for its builder. The initials meant “Military Road.” But in truth, even though the Army was paying its $230,000 cost, the road belonged to John Mullan.

The need for such a road had existed since 1848, when the U.S. Congress established the Oregon Territory, a vast land that included what now is Oregon, Washington and Idaho, plus big pieces of western Wyoming and Montana.

On the Missouri River, steamboats could go as far as Fort Benton, Mont.; while on the Columbia, shallow-draft vessels could reach the old fur trading post where Wallula, Wash., now sits. In between these ports stood an impenetrable barrier: the Bitterroot Mountains.

In 1854 when Mullan was two years out of West Point, he rode more than 1,000 miles as he crisscrossed the northern Continental Divide six times, seeking a suitable passage. After receiving his recommendation, the Army filed it away.

By 1858 population growth in the Pacific Northwest had fueled Indian unrest, compelling a link between the region’s two principal waterways. The Army resurrected Mullan’s dusty report, secured a congressional appropriation, and ordered Mullan to begin construction.

Because a road already existed for the river port at Wallula to Fort Walla Walla, Mullan’s brigade of 100 enlisted men, three officers and 100 civilians started working from the Army post in late June the following year. Within a month, they reached the wetlands at the south end of Lake Coeur d’Alene.

Further progress required that Mullan’s crews build a 60-foot bridge over the marshes, establish a ferry across the St. Joe River, and lay endless yards of log corduroy. On Aug. 18, 1859, at the Cataldo Mission (Idaho’s oldest standing building), the mileage marker read “M.R. 199 Miles.”

Alarmed about having a “white man’s” road on their land, the Coeur d’Alene Indians began to complain. Determined that nothing would halt his progress, Mullan warned chiefs that he would hang any who interfered. None did.

Pushing east from the mission, the workmen hacked through the mountainous terrain alongside the Coeur d’Alene River. For days on end, Mullan’s road grew not by the mile but by the foot, each earned with muscle and sweat.

Using axes and saws, the crews attacked trees that grew as thick as grass. Where the hillsides steepened and the streams frothed white, the men dug their trail into the slopes, and built so many bridges that history has lost count. Mullan kept his men at their task, even squelching a rumor of gold when one of them found color.

Winter forced everyone into camp. Mullan chafed at the inactivity, but, at least his road had reached the eastern slope of the Bitterroots. He now was in Montana.

In February 1860, crews jumped ahead to the Clark Fork River, built a ferry, then headed up its right bank. It was late March before other crews could continue chopping or shoveling their way down from the mountains. The linkup took until the end of June.

Using the valley carved by the Clark Fork, Mullan ran his road 70 miles past the future site of Missoula, then swung east toward the Continental Divide, which he crested on July 17.

Beyond this mountainous rib, the gently rolling plains of the upper Missouri River offered easier passage. On Aug. 1, 1860, a day after his 30th birthday, Mullan watched the 624-mile marker set at Fort Benton.

The Mullan Road, as it was nicknamed, slashed a 25-foot-wide swath through 120 miles of dense timber, most of them in Idaho. Every river and stream was spanned with a bridge or ferry.

Promoted to captain, Mullan spent the next two years repairing and altering his original route. In 1861, he relocated the road around the north end of Coeur d’Alene Lake, then drove east to tie into the original Mullan Road at the Cataldo Mission. On Independence Day that year, his crews were hard at work in the Coeur d’Alene Mountains when one of his men branded the date into what now is called the Mullan Tree.

John Mullan’s road never received the traffic he had envisioned. By the time he died in 1909, the forest had reclaimed most of his labor. But history has proven the wisdom of his route. Today in Idaho and western Montana, Interstate 90 follows much of the Mullan Road.

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: MULLAN TREE In 1962 a windstorm broke the top off the Mullan Tree. In 1988, its blazed stump was removed to the Museum of North Idaho, where it’s on display. The museum is located at 115 Northwest Blvd. in Coeur d’Alene (664-3448). Museum hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., April through October and on Sundays in July and August. Admission: adults, $1.50; children 6-16, 50 cents. To get to the Mullan Tree historical site, take Exit 28 off I-90 in the Fourth of July Canyon, 13 miles east of Coeur d’Alene. From the state historical sign, follow the paved road downhill toward a statue of John Mullan. A 1/2-mile walking trail leads past the tree’s stone monument; the trail follows a remnant of the Mullan Road.