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Chief Charlo Elementary School
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Chief Charlo Elementary School stands on the south hills of the city of Missoula overlooking the entire Missoula area. It is named for Chief Charlo, a leader of a band of Salish Native Americans during the late 1800’s. He is best known for his brave resistance to forced relocation from the Bitterroot Valley to the Flathead Valley. The lands named as the Flathead Indian Reservation, by treaty, encompassed all of the Bitterrroot Valley from Gibbons Pass in the south to the Clark Fork and Flathead River Valleys in the north, the Idaho state border in the west and the watershed of the Garnet Mountain Range in the east. His signature was forged on a treaty which said the Salish agreed to give up their beloved Bitterroot lands. The site of Chief Charlo Elementary School overlooks the mouth of the Bitterroot Valley to the south on the foothills where the Salish band gathered bitterroots. It is said that Chief Charlo loved little children. Lillis Manshadow Waylett, a descendent of Chief Charlo, said at the 1995 dedication of the new school, "It is a fitting place for two families to watch over them (the children) and care for their future. Most of all it is a permanent part of the Bitterroot Valley, off the reservation, where the name of our beloved Chief Charlo can reside forever."
The newest of the Missoula elementary schools, it has been fully wired with ethernet to connect the local and wide area networks. It also has cable TV to each classroom and access to the Internet.
For more information contact: Mark Thane, Principal, mthane@mcps.k12.mt.us.