[5] Bonner was also a partner in Eddy, Hammond & Company, who were contracted by the Northern Pacific Railroad for lumber to build their railway between the Thompson and Blackfoot rivers.

The associated Piltzville was named for Billy Piltz, early mill worker and yard boss.

Hammond, with partners Richard Eddy and Edward Bonner, founders of the Montana Improvement Company (MIC), enticed the nearly complete Northern Pacific Railroad (NP) to pass through Missoula.

Hammond, on behalf of the MIC, purchased land east of Missoula on Blackfoot River for a sawmill and dam to hold the mill's supply of logs.

The Blackfoot Milling Company began operation on 6 June 1886 and by August produced an average of 55,000 board feet of lumber per day.

It continued to expand and in 1889 it produced 24 million board feet of lumber and was considered the largest mill between Wisconsin and the West Coast.

[7] By 1888, it included a post office, and in 1889 Bonner Hall, which housed the Masonic Lodge and the first school.

Bonner remained a possession of the mill until finally sold to private ownership in 2007.

By 1892, Riverside already had a dozen homes, a livery stable, boarding house, and three saloons.

Farming and more private homes became available to the east in Piltzville and to the west in Pine Grove.

[10] "On January 16, 1919, the 'greatest fire in the history of Western Montana' burned a large portion of the mill to the ground.

[16] Bonner Dam was built in 1884 (rebuilt in 1886) on the Blackfoot River to hold logs and provide a little energy to the mill.

[18] The largest flood ever seen on those rivers occurred six months later, depositing millions of cubic yards of silt laden with heavy metals and arsenic in the Milltown Reservoir from upriver mining sites.

The Superfund restoration plan includes a redevelopment effort aimed at economic development and community revitalization.