Samuel and Daisy McDowell built this Craftsmanstyle bungalow for $4,000 in 1913. Much of its original character remains today, embodied in the clapboard and shingle siding, front porch, and exposed rafters and knee braces in the eaves. Samuel and his brother Edward ran a successful bookstore and stationery shop downtown. While living here, the McDowells had one daughter, Alice. She later became one of Billings’ early female pilots, taught aviation at Billings Polytechnic, and was the only female member of the Billings Civilian Air Patrol. Anthony and Frances Donovan purchased the house in 1918. Anthony was manager of the Advanced Rumley Threshing Machine Co. and Frances stayed at home with their two daughters. In early 1923, retired Musselshell Valley ranchers Harry and Lilias Drum bought the house. Harry was a well-known, pioneer-era cowboy who tended cattle for Granville Stuart in the 1880s before starting his own ranch. In Billings, he became registrar at the U.S. Land Office and was an active member of the Eastern Montana Pioneers. Lilias often held Poetry Club meetings in the house. The Drums lived here until 1930.
]]>Built at the height of the “bungalow craze,” this circa 1915 residence features the open eaves, exposed rafters, and triangular knee braces that characterize the Craftsman style. The home’s size (five rooms) made it affordable to finish the interior with modern plumbing, hardwood floors, and other desirable features. Early residents include civil engineer Winifred Record, who lived here in 1916 and 1917, and Edward and Edith Parker, in residence from 1918 to 1923. Edward was vice president of Montana Ranches, a real estate company that marketed hundreds of thousands of acres to Midwestern farmers. When the Parkers sold the home in 1923, they placed an ad in the Billings Gazette touting its “bath, sleeping porch, choice neighborhood, attractive lawn, trees and garden.” Martin Depner, who owned New Method Shoe Repair, and his wife Katherine purchased the residence. When their family of eight outgrew it in 1930, they advertised the house for sale for $5,500. Reflecting the automobiles’ growing cultural significance, their ad highlighted the property’s double car garage as a selling point.
]]>Though altered over many years to look like three separate buildings, this early 1900s brick commercial block is actually one large building (extending to the corner of Oak). Originally divided by interior partition walls, the building hosted three and sometimes four separate businesses inside. By 1912, Irish-born Emma Delaney ran a restaurant in 119, while Irish widow Margaret Hogan ran a confectionery next door at 121. Number 123 held the Swift Café and a shoeshine parlor, and Phil Daniels had an ice cream parlor at 125. Though many of the businesses came and went, others became downtown institutions. Duval Hardware opened in 1915 and remained at 119-121 until the early 1950s. The Waldorf Café, “The Good Place To Eat,” was a twenty-four-hour diner operating in 123 from 1918 to 1930. The Waldorf’s neighbors often complained about its rowdy clientele. Another well-known tenant was William Johnson, a Minnesota-born African American, who established the Anaconda Shoe Shining Parlor in 1925. Johnson polished and buffed shoes in his tiny shop between 123 and 125 until 1954.
]]>White Sulphur Springs businessman Harvey Spencer bought this newly constructed Queen Anne “Free Classic” style boardinghouse in 1902. The cross-gable roof and side bay window represent the Queen Anne form, while the pedimented porch entry and eave returns evoke the classical style. Of the many tenants who lived here, three important women stand out. In 1903, University of Montana (UM) English professor Frances Corbin rented the house. She spent twenty-six years teaching at UM and served as dean of women. Before she retired, Corbin Hall was named in her honor. From 1904 to 1906, Spencer’s daughter, Clarissa, an English major, lived with the Corbins. Clarissa later earned a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Missouri, taught high school English, and was director of Missoula’s Socialist School. Her colleague Martha Plassmann rented rooms here in 1907 and 1908. Plassmann taught music lessons, wrote a column titled “Socialist Notes” for the Missoulian, and supported the radical Industrial Workers of the World labor union. In 1911, Plassmann moved to Butte to manage Socialist Louis Duncan’s successful mayoral campaign.
]]>A fleet of twelve hundred masons and carpenters flocked to Warm Springs Creek in 1883 to build Marcus Daly’s Anaconda Company smelter. Daly hired Welsh masonry contractor John “Jack” W. Cornelius to oversee the construction process for his enormous facility. Jack built this Queen Anne style house in 1885 for his wife and four children. Originally, the house’s wood frame was clad with brick veneer. By 1890, Jack added an open, wraparound front porch. A later owner covered the brick with aluminum siding and enclosed the front porch after 1940. In 1890, the Corneliuses moved to Great Falls and rented the house to boarders. They sold it in 1898 to Northern Pacific foreman Henry Rees. From 1915 to 1917, the Church of Christ, Scientist met here on Sundays and Wednesdays. Mary Baker Eddy founded the church in Boston in 1879 on the belief that sickness can be healed by prayer. Anaconda’s branch welcomed the public to use its free circulating library and held services with topics ranging from “Sacrament” to “Is the Universe, Including Man, Evolved from Atomic Force?”
]]>Before homebuyers could secure mortgages through the Federal Housing Administration—a New Deal agency created in 1934 to stimulate the economy and encourage homeownership—private sales were more common. A 1913 newspaper ad defined the purchase terms for this house, “one of the most attractive and modern residences in Hamilton.” The buyer paid the seller $500 cash up front, then $25 a month, “same as rent,” until paying off “the balance, $1500, on long mortgage at 8 per cent.” The eight-room home featured an “open fireplace, cement walks, [and] handsome lawn…a real bargain at this price.” Built at the Craftsman style’s height of popularity, the house possessed many aspects of the style: a low-pitched roof, wide overhanging eaves, exposed rafter tails, prominent dormers, and battered (tapered) columns supporting an open porch. River rocks ornament the base of the porch columns, symbolizing a connection to the natural world. Herbert Weiss, who served as treasurer of the Valley Liquor Co., was an early but brief occupant. Forest Service supervisor John Lowell and his wife Mattie raised two children here in the 1920s.
]]>Shed roof dormers punctuating the low-pitched roof and triangular braces beneath the roof’s wide, sheltering eaves mark this stucco residence as a Craftsman style house. Elizabeth Bartlett purchased the lot from the Anaconda Company in 1909 and had this stylish home built, but she and her husband Draper lived here only briefly. Draper was a salesman for the short-lived Bitter Root Valley Irrigation Company (BRVI), which was largely responsible for the valley’s “apple boom.” In 1912, Draper left the BRVI just a few years before the company went bankrupt, and the couple left Hamilton for their ranch. The Bartletts sold this house to Harry and Amy Stanton in 1917. Amy was active in the Presbyterian Church and a founder of the Hamilton Woman’s Club. Harry owned the Stanton Grocery on Main Street, where he worked until shortly before his death in 1941. The family struggled during the Depression but managed by taking in lodgers. The Stantons raised four children here, one of whom, Chuck, took over Stanton Grocery after Harry’s death, continuing the community institution into the 1970s.
]]>Charles and Frances Bernier had this Minimal Traditional English cottage style home built in 1940. Contractor Bob James likely built the home, and mason Lewis Reid laid the arched white-marble doorway surround. Reid’s distinctive stonework decorates the entrances, fireplaces, and entire façades of many Helena homes. He always used a Celtic bond, a reflection of his Scottish heritage. The Minimal Traditional style grew out of the Federal Housing Administration’s (FHA) Great Depression-era loan program, created in 1934, to finance small homes the average working American could afford. In addition to offering insured, low-interest mortgages, the FHA published house-plan catalogs that promoted modest homes with minimal decoration. Private house-plan publishers followed suit, and by 1949 more than seven million Minimal Traditional style homes were built across the United States. The Berniers lived here for twenty years. Charles was a superintendent at the Montana Power Company until 1946 and a Masonic Lodge member. He also devoted countless hours to promoting Red Cross blood donations and teaching first-aid classes. Frances was a retired teacher and an involved member of the Eastern Star, Helena Women’s Club, and the PEO Sisterhood.
]]>George and Elizabeth Clark, immigrants from Cornwall, England, lived in this hipped-roof cottage for thirty years. George arrived in Butte in 1875, while Elizabeth and their three children followed in 1879. By 1890, the Clarks had settled in Centerville, within walking distance of the Mountain Consolidated Mine where George worked. The family watched Centerville grow from a scattered array of log cabins along muddy pathways into a bustling community of respectable one-story, frame houses, inhabited mostly by Cornish and Irish immigrants. This house was built in 1895, and the Clarks moved here in 1900. By then, George and his sons George, Jr., Albert, and William were all working in nearby mines and Elizabeth was a homemaker. George was well known in the mining community and at the end of his career he was the watchman at the Steward Mine from 1926 to 1930. Miner Alfred Temby, wife Mildred, and two children lived here in the 1930s. In 1941, the Tembys divorced, and by 1945 miner Charles Carlson and his wife Grace moved here. Members of the Carlson family remained in residence until 1992.
]]>Postal clerk (and later assistant postmaster) Ora Colby and his wife Alice built this six-room, Craftsman style home circa 1908. The building’s locally quarried stone foundation and open front porch connect the residence to its natural surroundings. Nature makes its way into the home’s interior through the decorative use of wood, including wooden pillars in the foyer and ornate, exposed wood beams on the living room ceiling. Albert and Mary Boorman purchased the residence in 1922, the same year Albert was elected mayor. A pioneer in forest-fire prevention, Albert “worked in everything in lumber from stump to car” before becoming secretary of the newly formed Northern Montana Forestry Association (NMFA) in 1911. At the time, property owners were individually responsible for fighting fires on their land. Membership in NMFA offered forest owners fire protection for one-half cent per acre. By 1938, NMFA was responsible for firefighting on about 2.5 million acres in both private and public forests. When Albert retired in 1946, his son Maurice succeeded him. Maurice and family also inherited the family home; he and his family continued in residence until 1980.
]]>Billings rancher and businessman James R. Conway built this handsome, brick, double-front store with an upstairs boardinghouse in 1900. Conway opened the Crystal Saloon in the west half and J. C. Staffek ran a cigar shop in the east half. The two businesses were among many saloons, cigar stores, and cafes located near the tracks that served railroad, warehouse, and factory workers as well as homesteaders, farmers, and ranchers passing through. While the first-floor façade has seen many alterations, the paired arched windows, rusticated stone sills, and dentil (tooth) pattern masonry on the second floor still reflect the Romanesque Revival style. During the early 1900s, this neighborhood hosted a large Asian immigrant community. The Shong Hoi Noodle Parlor opened here in 1914, and in 1919 Japanese immigrants George Taketa and Nabikichi Morimoto opened a cafe. The building’s longest operating business, the Oasis Bar, served a rowdy crowd from 1954 to the early 2000s. Although this area suffered a bad reputation from the 1920s until the end of the twentieth century, revitalization efforts in the early 2000s have preserved many buildings and attracted new businesses.
]]>Mining engineer Raymond G. Bettenson and his wife Gertrude built this classic, side-gable Craftsman style bungalow between 1910 and 1914. Raymond grew up just a block away in a handsome Queen Anne cottage. His childhood neighborhood still had open space remaining between the School of Mines hill and the empty lots of the still-developing West Side subdivisions. He would have watched those empty lots fill in with modern apartment houses and Craftsman style bungalows like this one. The well-preserved house has changed little since its construction. Its tapered brick porch columns, second-story shingle siding, gabled dormer, and exposed rafter tails in the eaves are key stylistic features. Raymond and Gertrude left for California after 1916, and Delia Davis and her husband Dr. John J. Davis purchased the house in 1917. John was a dentist with offices in the Owsley Block downtown. He openly advertised his prices, offering porcelain or gold crowns for four dollars and a full set of teeth for ten dollars. Delia and John raised their daughter Russell Delia here and remained in residence until their retirement in 1954.
]]>The Salish and Kootenai tribes reserved the land within the Flathead Reservation for their exclusive use in the 1855 Hellgate Treaty. Nevertheless, in 1910, Congress authorized the opening of the reservation to homesteaders. With the influx of thousands of farm families, towns like Dayton, founded in the 1890s, boomed. Among Dayton's new businesses was the Dayton Banking Company, which opened in 1910 “with assets of $100,000.” Two years later, bank President Clifford Harris and his associates reorganized the bank—which originally operated out of the Dayton Mercantile—as the Dayton State Bank. In 1913, they authorized construction of a dedicated building, hiring a contractor named Nelson for the project. Completed in October, the bank’s new home was, according to the local newspaper, “one of the ‘swellest’ institutions in the Northwest.” It featured Egyptian Revival style detailing, including a smooth exterior finish, tapered walls, and monumental columns supporting a heavy entablature (the horizontal band that topped the columns). Designed to evoke the entrance of an ancient temple, the bank looked like it would last the ages. The choice of the Egyptian Revival style, along with the bank’s thick concrete walls, was meant to assure customers that their money was safe from theft and bank failure. Initially, the bank upheld the implicit promise of its architecture. Although half of Montana’s banks failed in the agricultural depression of the 1920s, the Dayton State Bank survived into the 1930s. It closed in 1933, just months after Congress created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which protected bank customers’ deposits against loss.
]]>Bozeman real estate and insurance broker Edward M. Gardner and city treasurer George Willson commissioned this extended family home in 1907. George was married to Edward’s stepdaughter Florence and the two families—including five Willson boys—shared the residence until 1910 when both Mr. and Mrs. Gardner passed away. The home incorporates key elements of the Queen Anne Free Classic style, such as the Doric columns on the porch and cornice returns on the gable roof. In 1920, the Willsons moved to the upscale Evergreen Apartments, and rancher Charles Anceney acquired the home as a winter residence. Professors James and Florence Hamilton bought the house in 1926. James was instrumental in establishing Montana State College (now University) in 1893, and Florence was one of the first women admitted. Serving as college president from 1904 to 1918 and dean of men from 1918 to 1940, James worked tirelessly to establish Montana State as an engineering school. Florence spent her career there too as a professor of domestic arts. She sold the house to her nephew in 1963 and, as of 2020, it remained in the family.
]]>The five-story Masonic Temple was Havre’s largest building at the time of its opening in 1916. Its solid massing follows a longstanding Masonic tradition of erecting lodges whose size and bulk symbolize the permanency and stability of masonry itself. The members of Havre Lodge #55, first organized in 1901, wanted a home that would provide space for ceremonial and social functions. They also saw the building as an investment in Havre. The Masons counted on rent from first-floor retail establishments and second- and third-floor offices to subsidize the lodge. They reserved the fourth and fifth stories for their ceremonial and social rooms, including a Lodge room, a large kitchen and dining area overlooking the Lodge, and a chapel. Local architect Frank Buossot incorporated the Egyptian Revival style in the entrance's monumental, tapered sandstone pilasters and winged frieze to reflect the Mason’s symbolic ties to ancient Egypt. An Egyptian motif decorates the fourth floor Lodge room as well. Diamond-patterned brick, Italianate style double brackets, and a Gothic Revival stained glass window in the Knights Templar chapel also add dignity to the building.
]]>A major fire that destroyed ninety percent of Havre’s business district in 1904 also sparked the town’s transformation from a frontier community to a Progressive-era town. Rebuilding Havre coincided with a nationwide reform movement that promoted civic beauty as a vehicle for social and economic equality. The City Beautiful effort adopted the new French Beaux Arts style of architecture, which prescribed monumental public buildings with modernized Classical details. Havre’s embrace of the movement began in earnest in 1907 and culminated in 1912 when Hill County was created with Havre as its county seat. Citizens voted to fund a bond issue to build a courthouse in 1914, and the new $150,000 building—designed by prominent local architect Frank Buossot—was completed in 1916. Significant structural elements include the building’s steel-skeleton frame and glossy, white-glazed, terra-cotta tile cladding. Refined Classical ornaments, such as the four massive Corinthian columns, ornate entablature above the grand central entrance, third-floor medallions, and acroterium decorations at the roofline, recall ancient civic buildings. The Hill County Courthouse remains one of Montana’s most exuberant examples of Beaux Arts-style architecture.
]]>Missoula architect Henry E. Kirkemo designed this Cape Cod style cottage in 1935 for Sandy and Bessie Sanderson of Sanderson Hardware in downtown Hamilton. Kirkemo was well known in the community for designing nearby landmarks, including the Marcus Daly Memorial Hospital in 1930 and the Hamilton High School in 1931. As in his public buildings, Kirkemo applied perfectly scaled classical details to the Sanderson home, bestowing understated elegance to its corners, entrances, and windows. Six years later, the Sandersons sold the house to Vernon and Lois Hollingsworth, who lived here for over fifty years. Vernon and Lois raised three daughters here and were deeply committed to improving business, healthcare, and education opportunities in Hamilton and around the state. Vernon was president of Citizen’s State Bank and Hollingsworth Insurance from 1938 to 1992, a state senator from 1943 to 1946, and Marcus Daly Memorial Hospital Board vice chair from 1941 to 1996. Lois was a church elder and director of the First Presbyterian Church Sunday school and a devoted member of the Eastern Star, PEO Sisterhood, American Association of University Women, and Hamilton Women’s Club.
]]>Built in 1909, this grand Colonial Revival style home features a symmetrical plan, small gabled dormers, a cornice decorated with dentils, bay windows, and the style’s signature Palladian windows. The second-story porch with a balustrade railing indicates a Neoclassical influence. In the 1960s, owners removed part of what had been a symmetrical wraparound porch to add a carport, reflecting the way car culture changed design. Kalispell contractor Louis Woll built the residence on three lots facing the Swan Range for Cleora and Sidney Logan and their five children. An attorney, Sidney served stints as Flathead County attorney and Kalispell mayor. In 1904, Sidney successfully represented area ranchers in a suit against the Great Northern Railway; he reportedly paid for this house from his share of the settlement. A committed Republican, he reflected the Progressive Era’s commitment to urban planning and was a strong proponent of boulevards, the Carnegie Library, and creation of city parks. He was also a Good Roads Movement advocate who championed the construction of the highway between Kalispell and Libby. Sidney died in 1935; Cleora remained in residence until 1945.
]]>Typically two-and-one-half stories, with a low hipped roof and large central dormer, American Foursquares were economical to build and comfortable to live in. Their rectangular plan maximized living space without adding expense. This brick example is one of the “Three Sisters,” three very similar homes built on the 600 and 700 blocks of South Second West between 1902 and 1912. William and Nell MacGregor moved into the “completely and artistically furnished” house after their wedding in 1913. A Scottish immigrant with a background in banking, William worked as assistant treasurer for the Missoula Mercantile Company. Nell, who grew up just a few blocks away, was an accomplished pianist, who graduated from the Strassberger Conservatory in St. Louis. After her marriage, she became a program leader for the Missoula Woman’s Club music department. The home’s longest residents were Jacob and Birdie Heydorf who lived here from 1922 into the 1970s. Jacob was plant chief for Mountain States Telephone and Telegraph; during his tenure with the company he saw the number of telephones in Missoula increase from “about 500 to more than 11,000.”
]]>Architect Loren B. Olds, who arrived in Montana Territory in 1863, designed both the Madison County Courthouse and the original Beaverhead County Courthouse in Bannack (later the Meade Hotel) in 1875. Among the earliest architect-designed buildings in the territory, they both feature dramatic, gracefully curving interior staircases with beautiful newel posts and banisters. The staircases show an appreciation for woodwork that may have come from Olds’ original profession as a millwright. The Madison County Courthouse is the more ornate of the two. Its Italianate style details include paired brackets under the wide, overhanging eaves; tall, arched windows; and a cupola. Built for $35,000—a princely sum in 1875—the courthouse also features fanlight windows, a grand second-story balcony, and a round window centered in the gable end. William W. Morris, a Virginia City capitalist and Madison County treasurer, donated the lots for this important structure, which was dedicated on July 4, 1876. The oldest courthouse in the state still used for its original purpose, its vault continues to store some of Montana Territory’s earliest records.
]]>Congress created the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and FHA loans in 1934—at the height of the Great Depression—to finance and produce small homes that the average working American could afford. In addition to offering insured long-term, low-interest mortgages, the FHA also published its first “Principles of Planning Small Houses” bulletin in 1936. Private house-plan publishers jumped on board, and by 1949 more than seven million Minimal Traditional style homes like this one were built across the United States. Sophye Millette hired contractor John Peterson to build this tasteful home in 1939. The exterior brick chimney (marked with her last initial) and six-over-six-light wood windows are stylistic hallmarks. Millette, widowed at age twenty-seven, had raised her son Louis, Jr. at her parents’ house nearby and was chief operator at Mountain States Telephone by 1930. While many professional women held jobs in nursing and teaching, telephone operators also made a living wage. In 1939, Millette made $1,000 a year, the same amount as her brother Andrew, a laborer at Montana Power and her housemate throughout the 1940s. She remained in residence until 1964.
]]>W. H. Dunnigan and partners opened the Purity Dairy and the Purity Apartments (upstairs) in this brick commercial building in 1916. Purity was the first dairy processing plant in Anaconda to pasteurize raw milk brought in from area farmers. French microbiologist Louis Pasteur developed the process of heating liquids to kill harmful bacteria in 1864, but commercial milk pasteurization equipment was not available until 1895. Following a 1913 New York City typhoid epidemic resulting from contaminated milk, public health officials called for stringent milk pasteurization laws. Though most cities—including Billings—had, by 1917, mandated that milk be pasteurized, some small-town dairies resisted because the machinery was expensive. Nevertheless, Purity brought in the latest pasteurization machinery along with a factory specialist from Chicago’s Davis Milk Machinery Company. Purity touted its “safe milk” in newspaper ads and invited customers to observe their process through the large storefront window and on guided tours. Its marketing effort paid off. After just one month in operation, the dairy reported six hundred new customers. It remained at this location, with various owners, until 1962.
]]>Traders, ranchers, farmers, miners, homesteaders, veterans, and children lay silently here in this small, still-active, community cemetery. Simple, mostly unadorned grave markers are all that remain of Silver City, a small transportation hub and mining community (and one-time county seat). Enterprising Fort Benton traders and their Indian wives took up claims here where the new Mullan Wagon Road crossed Silver Creek. These families—including Jacob and Margaret Schmidt, William and Mary Kaiser, Joseph and Mary Cobelle, and others—ranched along Silver Creek before gold miners flocked to the area. In 1864, Silver Creek attracted California miner William Brown who uncovered gold-rich gravel bars on the Cobelle’s land, sparking a minor gold rush. Traders like Cobelle took their profits and moved on. Active from 1864 into the 1890s, Silver City blossomed to include this cemetery, cabins, and a school, as well as the saloons, hotels, and stores that catered to miners, stage lines, and freighters on the nearby Benton Road. Gold deposits played out by the late-1870s, but the fertile land drew ranchers and farmers. William Brown and his grown children began ranching alongside seasoned ranch families like the Gehrings and Sanfords. During the 1880s, now-prominent area families like the McWetheys, Synnesses, and Wilborns claimed homestead lands and began supplying Helena and distant markets with fresh meat and produce. Their community spanned Silver Creek, Little Prickly Pear Creek, and the Hilger Valley. While Silver City itself faded away, this humble cemetery remains, reflecting the area’s history and the legacies of the families buried here.
]]>Anaconda Company draftsman Alfred Longley and his wife Victoria bought this exemplary Craftsman style house, with Prairie style influences, in 1904. Three years later, an article in The Craftsman magazine featured their distinctive home, extolling the virtues of Butte’s emerging Craftsman style neighborhoods. Key stylistic elements include exterior shingle siding, large bay windows, and interior built-in cabinetry. The home’s hipped roof with wide overhanging eaves and expansive open floor plan evokes the Prairie style. The Longleys lived here a short time, but Anaconda Company employees and their families occupied the house for more than seventy-five years. Assistant superintendent of mines Bertram Dunshee and wife Fannie bought the home in 1910. They sold it to chief engineer Clifford D. Woodward and his wife Anna in 1920. Clifford was one of the nation’s leading mechanical and electrical engineers. He designed many patented systems that improved efficiency and safety in Butte’s mines. World famous inventor Thomas Edison was a close family friend who reportedly stayed with the Woodwards when visiting Butte. After Clifford died in 1949 and Anna died in 1958, their daughter Claudia lived here until the mid-1980s.
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