Christopher Powers Higgins (March 16, 1830 – October 14, 1889) was an American Army captain and later businessman who with Frank Worden founded the Hellgate Trading Post and the nearby city of Missoula, Montana.

John Mullan as wagon master for the Stevens survey of the Bitterroot and Missoula Valleys, done for the planned construction of a railroad through to region to connect the Mississippi River with the Pacific Ocean.

Governor Stevens, also acting as Superintendent of Indian Affairs, signed the Hellgate treaty to which Higgins was a witness with the Bitterroot Salish, Pend d'Oreille, and the Kootenai tribes that guaranteed passage.

[2] In 1860 Higgins partnered with Frank Worden, a general merchandise store owner in Washington to set up the Hellgate Trading Post in the Missoula Valley along the Mullan Road, which had only just reached the area that summer.

Higgins and Worden offered prime real estate to the rail line with the hope of ensuring not only a stop, but the lumber contract for the ties, bridges, and buildings that would need to be constructed.

On land donated to the city for the construction of the University of Montana in 1893, the streets are named after Higgins' seven children: Francis, Maurice, Arthur, Helen, Hilda, Ronald, and Gerald.