The long talked about Salmon Lake Highway Reconstruction project appears to finally be coming to fruition. Most of this highway stretch replaced the original wagon road into Seeley Lake country in the early 1920s.
Early ways into the valley were from the east and the west. The earliest main transportation route to and through here was via the Jocko Trail used by aboriginal peoples for ages coming from today’s Mission Valley. That trail comes from Jocko Pass, down Placid Creek, over Hill16/Tuppers Lake vicinity to the Riverview area south of Seeley Lake (known to the Salish as Place of Osprey). From Seeley, the Jocko Trail forked with the main trail going to Woodworth connecting to the ancient Indian trail now referred to as “The Road To The Buffalo.”
As Europeans discovered the valley, they first used the Jocko Trail from Woodworth over the Salmon Hills until Charlie Young’s crew built the Lion Creek-Ovando Wagon Road in 1890s. The first automobile came into the valley via that road in 1918. By the early 1920s people and commerce were coming from Missoula rather than Drummond/Ovando and Warren Thieme led an effort to get a more direct route downriver along Salmon Lake to Clearwater at the confluence with the Blackfoot River. The segment of that road from Morrell Flat to near the south end of Salmon Lake is about the extent of the 2022 project.
By 1931 the road had been completed from Clearwater to Bigfork and was designated as Montana State Highway 31. In 1960 it was renamed Secondary Highway 209 (S-209), and again in 1977 to what we know now as Highway 83.
The stretch from Clearwater Junction to Seeley Lake is about the highest traffic count of any secondary highway in Montana.
Enjoy the ride.
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