Lolo: The Name Nobody Can Quite Explain
Near Missoula, Montana
Lolo, Montana sits at the mouth of Lolo Creek, where it spills out of the Bitterroot Mountains, and the name has been debated almost as long as the place has been mapped. The most common explanation reaches back to the Chinook Trade Jargon, the pidgin language of the Northwest fur trade, where lolo meant to carry or to pack. Another theory traces it to a corruption of the French name for Meriwether Lewis, Le Louis.
A third says the Salish called the creek Tum-sum-lech, meaning no salmon. Lewis and Clark camped near here in eighteen oh five and called the site Travelers' Rest. The Corps spent two nights in September eighteen oh five preparing to cross the Bitterroot Range, and returned the following year for about three nights of rest before splitting the expedition into two parties for the journey home.
A state park marks that campsite today.
