The lack of modern medicine, prominence of disease, paired with the dangerous habits of the late 19th-century West made life expectancy low and dictated the need for a cemetery.

It consisted of Samuel Bellew, Harriet Keith, E. A. Winstanley, Mrs. F. H. Woody, Lizzie Mills and Lucinda Worden.

The current trustees are Marjorie Jacobs, Sharee Fraser, Carol Gorden, Patrick J. McHugh and Mary Lou Cordis.

[2] The Missoula Cemetery still holds the same location as when it was founded in 1884,[1] about three miles (5 km) northwest of the city's center.

Others are made of simple marble that masks their renowned accomplishments in life, like Jeanette Rankin's black stone with a plainly marked face.

This is due in part to the fact that Japanese immigrants didn't always bring their entire families over; therefore there was no one to write an epitaph for them.

[9] In 1864, Congress made it possible for the Northern Pacific Railway to purchase and advance production on nearly 14 million acres[10] of land between Minnesota and Oregon, which is how so many Japanese ended up in the Missoula Cemetery.