The Ninemile Remount Depot was once the center of U.S. Forest Service packing activities in the Northern Rockies. Completed by the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1935, it housed more than 1500 Rocky Mountain Canaries, or mules, and served as a prime breeding stock for the Forest Service. Ninemile packstock carried out firefighting, trail and fire lookout building, and many other kinds of backcountry work, with U.S. brands on their hips and diamond hitches securing their cargo. The pack strings were driven by packers known for never sparing the adjectives when conditions grew difficult. The depot's upper hayfield was used in the early years to train smokejumpers, and Ford TriMotor airplanes often had to buzz the field to clear grazing livestock before the jumpers could hit the silk. In 1980, Ninemile was listed on the National Register of Historic Places for its traditional architecture and its role in Forest Service, Civilian Conservation Corps, and local history. It remains a working ranger station and pack depot, with mules and horses still passing through its chutes and corrals for important backcountry work.