Editing Frenchtown, Montana (section)

==History==
[[File:Frenchtown Montana Center.jpg|thumb|left|Grocery and post office]]
Early settlers gave the location a generic name based on the ethnicity or language of the original settlers, namely [[French Canadians]].<ref>{{cite news | url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=ccY1AAAAIBAJ&sjid=2RAGAAAAIBAJ&pg=487%2C2128045 | title=Origins of Names on Milwaukee | work=Roundup Record-Tribune & Winnett Times | date=August 22, 1940 | access-date=27 April 2015 | pages=6}}</ref>

The settlement was cofounded around 1858 by two French Canadians moving inland with their [[Métis]] families<ref>Barman, Jean ''French Canadians, Furs, and Indigenous Women in the Making of the Pacific Northwest''. UBC Press. Vancouver 2014. Chapter 7: "Initiating Permanent Settlement"</ref> to escape turmoil further west that followed the arrival of the American federal authorities. Jean-Baptiste Ducharme left [[Puget Sound]] during the Indian Wars (1855-1856) abandoning his land claim as his [[Muck Creek]] neighbors were arrested under martial law. Louis Brown (anglicized name) left the Colville Valley turmoil a few years later with his [[Pend d'Oreille]] wife and their daughters. Meanwhile the [[Kalispel Indian Community]] had moved upriver to a new locale accompanied by Jesuit priest Father Hoecken, who relocated the Saint-Ignatius mission northeast of the future Frenchtown.

The St. Louis Catholic Church was built in 1864.

A post office called Frenchtown was first established in 1868.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.postalhistory.com/postoffices.asp?task=display&state=MT&county=Missoula | title=Missoula County | publisher=Jim Forte Postal History | access-date=27 April 2015}}</ref>