Missoula Gives for History

What is Missoula Gives?

Now in its ninth year, it is a day of giving back to the local nonprofits that make our community special, through the power of our collaborative generosity! We hope you will help us to come together and support our community. Thank you!

Visit our giving page to support the Friends of the Historical Museum at Fort Missoula. Thank you!

Now is the time to support our community and your Historical Museum through Missoula GIVES!

 

As YOUR local history museum, the Historical Museum at Fort Missoula has so many stories to tell. From the early settlers to the importance of forestry for the development of the area to the Civilian Conservation Corps era at the fort.  While some of these stories are hyper local, others have a far-reaching impact.

 

One of the most important stories to the past, present and future is the World War II Alien Detention Center that was located at Fort Missoula.  During WWII, the Department of Justice’s Immigration and Naturalization Service took control of the fort, and between 1941 and 1944, over 2,200 men, foreign nationals and resident aliens, primarily Italian and Japanese, were detained at Fort Missoula.

 

For the past several years, the museum has been working to raise funds for the restoration of two additional barracks that will help us to tell this important story.  One barrack will be restored and used as an immersive exhibit (Imagine that the men have just stepped outside.), and the second will be a reconstruction that will provide the museum with a state-of-the-art collections storage space to preserve artifacts for future generations.  The overall cost of this project is $800,000.  Thanks to a wonderful grant from the Japanese American Confinement Sites (JACS) grant program, several local foundations, and supporters like you, we are just $20,000 away from our goal!

Your generosity during Missoula Gives will allow us to reach this goal and interpret this important story in a new way!
Thank you so much for your support!

 

On the announcement of the JACS grant in 2021, Historical Museum at Fort Missoula Executive Director, Matt Lautzenheiser said:

 

“Our selection for this grant will allow Missoula County and the Historical Museum at Fort Missoula to increase our efforts to preserve and interpret the most intact internment or incarceration camp in the United States.  As our country continues to grapple with issues of social justice, it’s important for museums and cultural institutions to remain beacons of truth and places where our community can reflect on our history, both good and bad, and learn important lessons from the past.”

 

Fort Missoula is currently the largest intact World War II internment site in the country, with most major buildings of the era still in use, including the Post Headquarters with its courtroom, the hospital, commissary, officer and staff housing, barracks and other support structures. The museum has an exhibit on internment housed in an original barrack and an exhibit in the Heath Gallery of the Main Museum building titled “Looking Like the Enemy: Issei Internment at Fort Missoula.”