Despite Civil War turmoil, westward progress led into the Gilded Age of substantial growth in population and wealth. In November 1861, John Mullan established Cantonment Wright just east of here across the Blackfoot River, a small camp of six crude log cabins where he planned the next year's construction program while his men built a bridge across the river. The camp stood near Hell Gate, a trading post established by Frank Worden and Christopher Higgins in 1860 that became one of the toughest settlements in the territory; during its four-year history, with a permanent population that never exceeded twenty people, nine men died violently, including four hanged by vigilantes in 1864. Mullan called the area a cold and bleak place and the camp an abode of not over much comfort. His men completed the 235-foot bridge in March during the winter building season and abandoned Cantonment Wright two months later. Called a picturesque piece of architecture, the bridge carried wagons and pack trains over the Blackfoot for only a couple of years before high water destroyed it, but it was the first of many bridges to span the Clark Fork and Blackfoot rivers here. In 1896, Missoula County built another bridge across the Blackfoot at the site of the old steel bridge just to the north. A devastating flood in 1908 badly damaged that bridge, and it was repaired only enough to remain open and usable. In 1919, the Montana State Highway Commission agreed to fund half the cost of a new bridge, and the county raised the rest. In 1921, the Security Bridge Company of Billings began construction, and in 1922 the new bridge was completed at a cost of nearly $110,000, the most expensive bridge built in Montana up to that time. It carried traffic on U.S. Highway 10 for the next three decades, until a new bridge was built downstream in 1950 after engineers declared it quite dangerous. Long closed to traffic, the old bridge was rehabilitated in 2008 after Missoula County and the local Save Our Bridge committee raised money to save it from demolition; its two original spans were combined into one longer span to eliminate the need for a concrete pier in the Blackfoot River, and the rehabilitated Black Bridge, now just over 56 feet longer than the original, again serves as an important crossing of the Blackfoot River.