A small, remnant population of genetically pure, native westslope cutthroat trout has somehow survived from that bygone era in the upper stretches of Pattee Creek above the Missoula Valley.
But those fish can no longer migrate to the big river and return to their birthplace to spawn.
This week, Montana Trout, with help from neighborhood volunteers and the Missoula Parks and Recreation Department, is transforming two sections of the remaining active channel of Pattee Creek into a condition resembling the natural trout stream that existed 100 years ago.
Two 200-foot sections of the creek - now a straight ditch choked with noxious weeds flowing along Pattee Creek Drive - will be restored with meanders, pools, drop structures to create small waterfalls, removal of noxious weeds, and hundreds of native riparian plants, including red-osier dogwood, chokecherry, alder, willow, wild rose and native grasses and sedges.
The two creek sections border a pair of city parks in the Lewis and Clark School neighborhood - Lester and Elm.
Besides the improved aesthetics of a natural stream in the city, the restoration project will serve a two-fold educational purpose, according to Zelazny.
"One is to provide an example of a living trout stream for park visitors and the community at large," he says. "The second is so area schools can utilize the sites as living laboratories for studying stream systems and ecology."
Lewis and Clark School is only a few blocks from the restoration project, and just north of that is Washington Middle School. Teachers from both schools have already expressed an interest in using the sites for their classes, Zelazny says.
"In coordination with our water monitoring, approximately 80 eighth-grade students from Washington Middle School would be willing to participate in weed removal and possible revegetation along Pattee Creek," wrote Washington teacher Teresa Toller in a letter to Zelazny.
"Ideally," Toller adds, "we would have half of these students doing the water monitoring at our site, and the other half assisting with the restoration efforts at Elms and Lester parks. The next day, the students could switch sites in order to be involved with both activities.
"We have been monitoring the water quality of Pattee Creek near the intersection of Pattee Canyon Drive and Higgins Avenue for the past several years. Your efforts to improve and restore the riparian area along Pattee Creek would enhance the overall education of my students, many of whom live near or along the stream, as well as instill a sense of ownership in maintaining the health of the area as a whole."
In the early years of Missoula's growth as a town, says Zelazny, development of agriculture affected Pattee Creek. Its flow was diverted to the west and south for irrigation of crops. Probably during the 1940s, the stream ran along 34th Street and across the Missoula County Fairgrounds. At that point, he says, it likely trickled across the valley floor without reaching the Bitterroot River.
As housing development progressed, Pattee Creek was funneled into its present location through a ditch that followed Pattee Creek Drive and Bancroft Street, according to Zelazny.
The ditched stream flows into an 8 fi-acre marsh once known as Bancroft Duck Pond, now named Children's Fish Pond Park. In previous years, as it left the marsh area, it continued for another mile or so through the Russell Street West neighborhood.
Now, after Pattee Creek leaves the pond, it is totally diverted into Missoula's new storm-sewer system, which runs down 39th Street, according to Zelazny.
"Everything that was above ground has now been buried as a result of the 39th Street storm-sewer project," he says.
Zelazny's plan to restore Pattee Creek to a more natural state originated in 2001, about the time the city was obliterating most of the stream and diverting its flows into the storm-sewer system, he says. He had just formed Montana Trout the year before and was looking for local trout habitat restoration projects.
On Tuesday, work began on his plan, with an excavator carving out new meanders and pools. The rehabilitation is scheduled to be completed on Friday.
The project also will include removing thick stands of yellowflag iris, an introduced ornamental plant that is listed as a noxious weed in Montana, Zelazny says.
"It spreads like crazy," he says. "And the concern is that it could spread to the Bitterroot River, because it would create major problems in that waterway."
After the stream is restructured, and native riparian vegetation planted, interpretive signs will be installed to explain the project.
And, says Ladd Knotek, a fisheries biologist for Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, "it's reasonable to assume" that some of the resident population of cutthroats in the upper reaches of Pattee Creek will move into the new habitat.
Missoula Parks and Recreation officials have been very supportive of the restoration project from the beginning, according to Zelazny, and are providing assistance with equipment and the logistics of diverting stream flow while work is under way in the channel.
"This project will allow an urban park to regain fisheries habitat function and would provide a great opportunity for community education," says David Claman, parks design and development manager for Missoula Parks and Recreation. "The conflict between traditional landscape aesthetics and ecological function is difficult for all creek-side landowners, and this project would provide an opportunity to educate the public on these issues."
About 10 volunteers from the local community are pitching in to help Zelazny plant shrubs and put in drop structures this week, he says.
"This is really a grassroots project," says Zelazny. "I've been going from house to house, talking to homeowners in the affected area. Virtually to a person, they are supportive of seeing Pattee Creek enhanced. Several have said they'd like to see it continued in front of their houses. My hope is that it expands in the future."
The project couldn't have gone forward, Zelazny says, without financial support from the National Forest Foundation, which provides funds to communities near national forests to enhance the quality of life, and FWP's Montana Future Fisheries Program. Those two sources provided about $10,000 in grants for the project.
"Pattee Creek is what happens when a community grows up around a stream, and doesn't see the stream as the amenity that it is," he says. "But communities across the West have spent millions of dollars daylighting, or uncovering streams, digging them up out of sewer pipes and bringing them back to the surface. And beautifying them, putting in trails and greenways. Obviously, the opportunities to do that along Pattee Creek are now limited.
"But there are other streams around Missoula where we still have the opportunity to give them their proper place. Those are Butler Creek, Grant Creek and LaValle Creek west of town."
Reporter Daryl Gadbow can be reached at 523-5264 or at dgadbow@missoulian.com
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