Mount Jumbo

Mount Jumbo is an iconic mountain that overlooks the city of Missoula, Montana. The mountain is northeast of the city’s downtown and, in its majority, is publicly owned. In 1996, Jumbo was purchased from private landowners and protected from development. Funding for this purchase came from an open space bond, federal and non-profit agencies and thousands of local contributors. Additional land parcels have been purchased since then, increasing the easement to its current 1,800 acres.Natural HistoryGlacial Lake MissoulaBetween 15,000 and 13,000 years ago, Glacial Lake Missoula formed when an ice sheet blocked the Clark Fork River, damming up the river’s water back into the valleys of western Montana. The dam would periodically burst causing a flood of water to rush across Idaho, Washington and Oregon to the Pacific Ocean. This lake contained about of water, half the volume of Lake Michigan. These dramatic drops in water levels caused the distinct glacial lake shoreline marks that are still visible from the floor of the Missoula Valley on the face of Mount Jumbo and neighboring Mount Sentinel.NamingDavid Thompson, an English-Canadian fur trader, ignoring the Salish name already given, renamed the hill 'Brown Knowl' when he climbed in on February 26, 1812. Later, eastern settlers thought Mount Jumbo looked like a sleeping elephant. Locals saw the landform as a reclining elephant with its rump in the Clark Fork and its trunk pointing north toward the Rattlesnake Mountains; the round grassy mountain became known as 'Elephant Hill.' Miners christened a nearby copper mine 'Jumbo Lode' in honor of Barnum and Bailey's most famous attraction Jumbo, the largest elephant in the world, which Barnum acquired in 1882. The feature was later renamed Mount Jumbo.