Ovando, Montana: A Short History of a Blackfoot Valley Town

History · Powell County · Blackfoot Valley

Ovando sits in the Blackfoot River valley of Powell County, about fifty-four miles east-northeast of Missoula. The 2020 census counted 83 residents. The town is small, but its history explains a lot about ranching, logging and recreation in this part of Montana.

The river road to the buffalo

Long before settlers arrived, tribes including the Kootenai, Salish, Nez Perce, Blackfeet and Pend d’Oreille used the Blackfoot corridor to travel east to the bison country. The historical marker in town gives the river’s old name as “Cokalahiskit,” the River of the Trail of the Buffalo. Today it is called the Big Blackfoot River.

The valley itself was shaped by glaciers. A University of Montana column on Ovando describes how ice flowing out of the high country to the north spread across the valley floor and left behind moraines, kames and small ponds, which give the land its hummocky look.

How the town got its name

Ovando Hoyt was born in Massachusetts in 1844 and came to Montana Territory in 1865. After years in the Bitterroot Valley he settled in the Blackfoot Valley around 1882, ranched, and later opened a general store. When local settlers wanted a post office, they asked Hoyt to write to Washington. According to the town marker, they suggested the name “Sadiesville,” but postal officials chose “Ovando” because it was unusual. Hoyt became the first postmaster and served from 1883 to 1898. His log home, which held the first post office, still stands at the west end of town.

Growth, and a railroad that never came

The first schoolhouse opened in 1884. Charles Jakways strung a telephone line from Ovando to Drummond and founded the Blackfoot Telephone Company. By the early twentieth century, the marker says, Ovando had two general stores, five saloons, two blacksmith shops, a church, a hotel, a drugstore, a barbershop and a bank, and it served as a Forest Service headquarters. A stage line linked it to Helmville and Drummond, and residents expected the Blackfoot Railroad to arrive.

It never did. In 1919 a fire destroyed much of the commercial district. The Forest Service headquarters later moved away, and drought and a decline in logging made things harder still. Many of the pioneer ranches survived, though, some of them now in their fifth generation.

Outfitters, anglers and cyclists

Ovando calls itself the front door to the Bob Marshall Wilderness, and backcountry outfitting has long been part of local life. Howard Copenhaver of Ovando wrote about his life as a backcountry outfitter in They Left Their Tracks: Recollections of 60 Years as a Bob Marshall Wilderness Outfitter.

The river matters too. The Blackfoot is one of Montana’s best-known trout streams and the setting of Norman Maclean’s A River Runs Through It. More recently, the town has become a favourite stop on the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route; see Ovando and the Tour Divide. Glacier Country Tourism notes that Ovando’s welcome for cyclists helped it earn the 2018 Montana Community of the Year award for tourism and recreation.

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