Unseen Missoula Guided Walking Tours Cover City’s Colorful Past

Missoula, MT (KGVO-AM News) - How much does the average Missoula resident know about our city, especially its colorful past?

Enter Amber Gagen, Program Director for the Downtown Missoula Partnership, who is the host and tour guide for Unseen Missoula’s guided walking tours.

How Much Do YOU Know About Missoula's Colorful Past?

“This is our eighth consecutive year running our Unseen Missoula historic guided walking tours,” began Gagen. “We have expanded to four different tours that kind of cover more of the unknown and unseen past of Missoula's history.”

Gagen provided a thumbnail sketch of the four main walking tours of Missoula.

“We've got four different offerings from April through September,” she said. “They are Basements and Back Alleys, and it goes over the transformation from a rugged frontier to the economic hub that we see. We see more in the 1920s with Hotels and Hooligans, which takes a look more at the railroad and how that kind of shaped what we see as Missoula today. Then, we have Carnal Enterprises that takes a look at the once bustling red light district that we had that covered Main Street.”

There are Four Very Different Tours Available to Residents and Visitors

Gagen had specific details about how to access the tours.

“It's offered to the public from April through October, and then we do more of the private tours for any time throughout the year,” she said. “So you just schedule that through me, and we're able to connect you with a guide. And then your own group can personalize the tours, a little bit more of where they start and where they end, if you have a dinner at the end, or anything like that, and those do cost $20.00 a person.”

Gagen said Missoula Residents Often Add a Lot to the Tours

Gagen said many times lifelong Missoula residents add a lot when they take the tour for the first time.

“Every single one of my guides has at least a handful of stories of when they're taking the tours or giving the tours, and they'll share a story, and someone raises their hand and says, ‘Well, actually, did you know?’, and shares one of their own personal anecdotes, which is really cool and a really great way of our community to connect more to that history.”

Public tours are $18 per person and can be purchased here.