From The Life of Mark Twain: The Early Years, 1835-1871, page 290

LaSalle was named in honor of the early French explorer, Robert de LaSalle.

Following the Great Sioux War of 1876-77 and the defeat of U.S. Army forces led by General George Armstrong Custer at the Battle of Little Big Horn on June 25, 1876, and the defeat and capture of the Nez Perce, band of Chief Joseph by the U.S. Army in the Battle of Bear Paw in 1877, General Phil Sheridan suggested that a fort be built on or near the Milk River to ward off possible attacks from the North by the Sioux led by Chief Sitting Bull, who had migrated to the Cypress Hills in Canada, or by the Nez Perce, some of whom were also in Canada. Lt. Col. J.R.

Huntington Hall/Merrimack Street Depot

By 1904, the building that housed both Huntington Hall and the Merrimack Street Depot had served as the city’s main public gathering place for generations. The City of Lowell and the Boston & Lowell Railroad entered into a joint agreement to build the hall in 1853, providing the railroad with the Merrimack Street Depot and the city with a public hall. Named for the early longtime Lowell mayor, Elisha Huntington, the building housed the hall in its upper stories, and the train depot on its bottom story.

Fort Benton, the last trading post on the upper Missouri River. For thirty years this port attracted steamboats all the way from the Mississippi River. It's importance was superceded only upon the arrival of the railroad. In 1867, Union General Thomas Francis Meagher, then acting governor of Montana territory, fell overboard from his steamboat and drowned. His body was never recovered.