Missoula, Montana
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40 free Missoula, Montana trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Missoula sits where several mountain valleys meet in western Montana, and its story runs from a vanished Ice Age lake to a frontier trading post, a railroad boom and a lively university town. Few small cities pack in as many odd and memorable details. This quiz gathers fun facts about Missoula, Montana: how the place got its name, what happened at the old army fort, which landmarks locals love, and what the rivers and hills around town are known for. You will also meet the politicians, performers, writers and athletes with ties to the area. It suits residents, students, visitors planning a trip and anyone who enjoys Montana trivia. Every question comes with a short explanation, so you pick up something new even when you miss.
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Q 01A man-made feature beside Caras Park lets people in landlocked Missoula do which ocean sport downtown?
Surfing
Surfing draws crowds to Brennan's Wave, built on the river in memory of a Missoula kayaker who died paddling in Chile. Kayakers and paddleboarders share it with the board riders.
Q 02In 1897, Buffalo Soldiers stationed at Fort Missoula made a 1,900-mile test trip to St. Louis riding what?
Bicycles
Bicycles carried the 25th Infantry Bicycle Corps from Fort Missoula to St. Louis as an Army experiment. The Army decided the machines had limited military use and would never replace the horse.
Q 03Which Missoula, Montana, native became the first woman elected to the U.S. Congress, back in 1916?
Jeannette Rankin
Jeannette Rankin won a Montana seat in the House in 1916, before most American women could vote. A lifelong pacifist, she voted against declaring war in both 1917 and 1941.
Q 04Missoula schoolchildren collected a million of what to adopt four horses on the downtown carousel?
Pennies
Pennies, a million of them worth $10,000, paid for four ponies on A Carousel for Missoula. Volunteers hand-carved the horses after a local cabinet maker offered to build the ride if the city gave it a home.
Q 05Settlers named Mount Jumbo, above Missoula, because they thought the hill resembled which sleeping animal?
An elephant
An elephant lying down, its trunk pointing north, is what locals saw in the grassy hill. The name salutes Jumbo, the giant star of P. T. Barnum's circus, by way of a nearby mine called the Jumbo Lode.
Q 06Norman Maclean's novella A River Runs Through It made the rivers around Missoula famous for which pastime?
Fly fishing
Fly fishing is the family passion in Maclean's story of growing up in Missoula in the early 1900s. Robert Redford's 1992 film version starred a young Brad Pitt.
Q 07Which surrealist film director, famous for eerie mysteries set in small towns, was born in Missoula in 1946?
David Lynch
David Lynch was born at St. Patrick's Hospital in Missoula, the son of a federal research scientist. He went on to co-create the television mystery series Twin Peaks.
Q 08The airport in Missoula is home to a famous base and visitor center for which elite wildland firefighters?
Smokejumpers
Smokejumpers, who parachute into remote wildfires, are based at the Aerial Fire Depot beside Missoula's airport. President Eisenhower came to dedicate the depot in 1954.
Q 09Which oddly named brown ale from Big Sky Brewing in Missoula became the best-selling beer brewed in Montana?
Moose Drool
Moose Drool comes from Big Sky Brewing, which opened in Missoula in 1995 and grew into Montana's largest brewery. The company also built an amphitheater for concerts and charity events.
Q 10As built in 1921, the Wilma Theatre in downtown Missoula had which surprising feature in its basement?
A swimming pool
A swimming pool called the Crystal Plunge sat beneath the Wilma when it was built. Builder Billy Simons dedicated the theatre to his wife, the light opera artist Edna Wilma.
Q 11The horizontal lines on Mount Sentinel above Missoula, Montana, are what kind of natural feature?
Ancient shorelines
Ancient shorelines mark the levels where the vast glacial lake stood about 13,000 years ago. Where the University of Montana campus sits today, the lake was once 950 feet deep.
Q 12When its ice dam burst, Glacial Lake Missoula sent floods that carved the Channeled Scablands of which state?
Washington
Washington's eastern scablands were scoured about 40 times as the lake drained and refilled over 2,000 years. The torrents ran on down the Columbia River Gorge.
Q 13Fans in Missoula pack a 25,000-seat stadium to cheer the University of Montana football team, known as what?
Grizzlies
Q 21Which federal agency has run a six-state regional headquarters in Missoula, Montana, since 1908?
Forest Service
Forest Service managers chose Missoula in 1908 because it was both a major lumber producer and a regional trading hub. Timber and the university then anchored the local economy for a century.
Q 22The arrival of which transcontinental railroad in 1883 turned Missoula from a town of 500 into a boomtown?
Northern Pacific
Northern Pacific trains reached Missoula in 1883, when the town had about 500 residents. The line's repair shops brought hundreds of jobs, and its appetite for bridge timber launched the local lumber industry.
Q 23Front Street in downtown Missoula follows the line of which pioneering military wagon route over the Rockies?
Grizzlies football dates to 1897, and the team won national championships in 1995 and 2001. The bear mascot is called Monte, short for Montana.
Q 14Which name is given to the annual football game between Missoula's University of Montana and rival Montana State?
Brawl of the Wild
Brawl of the Wild has been the game's advertised name since 1997, though the rivalry began in 1897. The winner keeps the Great Divide Trophy, named because the campuses sit on opposite sides of the continental divide.
Q 15Travelers' Rest, near Missoula, is the only campsite with physical proof of which famous expedition's stay?
Lewis and Clark
Lewis and Clark camped at Travelers' Rest in 1805 and again in 1806. A 2002 dig pinned down the camp latrine by its traces of mercury, left by the pills given to sick soldiers.
Q 16Missoula is the second most populous city in Montana, behind which city on the Yellowstone River?
Billings
Billings is Montana's largest city, well ahead of Missoula, which counted 73,489 residents at the 2020 census.
Q 17Missoula, Montana, lies less than 25 miles as the crow flies from the border of which state?
Idaho
Idaho begins less than 25 miles from Missoula, which sits at Montana's far western edge. By highway, the lakeside resort city of Coeur d'Alene is 165 miles to the northwest.
Q 18Which Saturday Night Live comedian, who played Garth in Wayne's World, was born in Missoula, Montana?
Dana Carvey
Dana Carvey was born in Missoula, the fourth of five children of two schoolteachers. His breakout character on Saturday Night Live was the prim, pious Church Lady.
Q 19The name Missoula comes from a Salish name for the local river that roughly translates as a place of what?
Cold or frozen water
Cold or frozen water is the rough sense of nmesuletkw, the Salish name for the river through town. The name has also long been glossed as river of ambush, after the intertribal fighting once common nearby.
Q 20The canyon east of Missoula was named Porte de l'Enfer by French fur trappers, meaning the gate of what?
Hell
Hell seemed the right word to trappers who found the narrow canyon strewn with bones from repeated ambushes. The 1860 trading post that grew into Missoula took the same grim name.
Mullan Road
Mullan Road was the first wagon road to cross the Rocky Mountains to the inland Northwest. Missoula began in 1860 as a trading post serving the travelers who used it.
Q 24Over 1,200 merchant seamen and World's Fair workers from which country were interned at Fort Missoula in 1941?
Italy
Italy's stranded sailors and fair workers nicknamed the camp Bella Vista. They worked on area farms and fought wildfires until they were released in 1944.
Q 25Which University of Montana history professor from Missoula later led the U.S. Senate's majority for sixteen years?
Mike Mansfield
Mike Mansfield was Senate majority leader from 1961 to 1977, then spent more than a decade as U.S. ambassador to Japan. As a young man he spent eight years shoveling ore in Montana mines.
Q 26Which future Denver Broncos quarterback lived in Missoula as a boy while his father coached at the university?
John Elway
John Elway spent part of his childhood in Missoula while his father, Jack, was an assistant coach for the Montana football team. He went on to win two straight Super Bowls with Denver.
Q 27Bassist Jeff Ament, who studied art at the University of Montana in Missoula, co-founded which Seattle rock band?
Pearl Jam
Pearl Jam's bassist grew up in Big Sandy, Montana, a town of fewer than 700 people, and played basketball while studying in Missoula. He even suggested naming the band after NBA player Mookie Blaylock.
Q 28Which Oscar-winning Whiplash actor graduated from the University of Montana in Missoula with a music degree in 1978?
J. K. Simmons
J. K. Simmons moved to Missoula at 18 when his father became director of the university's School of Music. He won his Academy Award for playing a ferocious jazz instructor.
Q 29Which actor, later famous as Archie Bunker, edited the student newspaper at the University of Montana in Missoula?
Carroll O'Connor
Carroll O'Connor quit as editor of the Montana Kaimin in 1949, protesting campus pressure that got an issue destroyed over a cartoon mocking the state education board. He took no drama courses but acted in student plays.
Q 30The Boone and Crockett Club, headquartered in Missoula, was founded in 1887 by which future U.S. president?
Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt proposed the club at a dinner in his New York home in December 1887. It is North America's oldest conservation group for game animals and their habitat.