On the northern edge of Stevensville, this one-acre site preserves Fort Owen, one of Montana’s most important early settlement places. Founded in eighteen forty-one as Saint Mary’s Mission by Father Pierre-Jean De Smet and his companions, it became Montana’s first permanent white settlement, first Christian and Catholic church, and the setting for several territorial firsts in farming, livestock, milling, and schooling. After Blackfeet raids closed the mission, John Owen bought the property in the first recorded land transaction in Montana and turned it into a major trading post. Though it declined after the eighteen sixties, the site still preserves the East Barracks and archaeological remains of this pivotal early community.