Mission

Maintain West Riverside Community Park (formerly Hellgate Lions Park) to enhance a sense of community where people of all ages may participate in social and recreational activities.

Goals and Objectives

  • Uphold the mission of Missoula County Parks and Trails
  • Ensure maintenance of all facilities to keep them in good condition at all times
  • Broaden community awareness of the park as a community asset
  • Explore ways to enhance park services
  • Encourage increased use of the park by community residents – individuals, families, and organizations

Park Management

In the late 1970s the Hellgate Lions International acquired the park property from Ellen Zimmerman and began building the park and restoring the barn with the aid of Missoula County. When the Lions Club disbanded in 2016 the park property reverted to Missoula County and Friends of Two Rivers assumed trusteeship with the goal of carrying on the legacy of community service established by the Hellgate Lions. On January 1, 2021 Missoula County assumed responsibility for park management and maintenance. To better reflect the significance ot the park to the commuity, the name was updated to West Riverside Community Park.  Future plans include historic interpretation panels to preserve the history of the park from the indigenous people and early settlers, through the Hellgate Lions, and into the future.

Links

Missoula County
Friends of Two Rivers

History

from “The story of the old barn and the Zaugg & Richlie Families”
by Wayne Richlie

“The Zaugg family came from Switzerland around 1870. There were Christopher & Barbara with their five children: Adelia, Emma, Cecilia, Martha, and Emil. The sixth child, Arnold, was born in 1872 when they first settled in Missouri...After a few years (Christopher) died and Barbara had to take in washing for a living and the boys sold newspapers and farm produce in Kansas City. The girls worked for different families....At a young age the oldest child, Adelia married John Richlie who took up a homestead on what is now the Bandmann Flats. He talked the Zauggs into coming out to Montana in about 1883 and they bought out a couple of trappers who had a log cabin and they then homesteaded the farm [now part of the park]. They built up the farm and sold milk, eggs, butter, ice cream as well as fruit and vegetables to the workers’ families at the Big Blackfoot Milling Co. in Bonner, and the Western Lumber Co. which was located where the River City Grill and the Town Pump now stand...The two-story house on the farm was built aorund 1924 by Pete Kosamen and Sam Butler. The barn had stalls for 32 cows with 16 on a side facing a middle aisle which was used to carry hay and bran, beet pulp, mangles, etc., for their feed boxes. There were two milking machines.... The loads of hay were hauled to the north end of the barn where a large grapple fork was pushed into the load by two men who then yelled for the pull-up lad and horse on the south end of the barn to pull the load up and into the barn. My brother, Conrad, took pride in leading the pull-up horse.”