Dwight Harding

Dwight Harding (1834 – July 3, 1904) was a butcher, miner and the 5th mayor of Missoula, Montana.

He was born in Tunkhancock, Pennsylvania in 1834 and left home for the first time in 1856 when he moved to Minnesota.

He headed west into British North America two years later and after five years there returned to the United States in 1863 after being employed by American surveyors to help establish the US–Canada border.

Harding joined the gold rush in Montana's Alder Gulch and spent the next several years in various gold camps in western Montana before finally settling in Missoula in 1866.

[1] In 1874, Harding ran for Sheriff of Missoula County as a Republican but was defeated by John Miller when Democrats won all the seats that year except those of Daniel Woodman and Missoula co-founder Frank Worden who ran as Republicans.