An 1886 fire destroyed the one-story tin shop and hardware warehouse that originally occupied this lot. Two year later, meat merchant and rancher John Harvat purchased the property. Livingston’s premier Gilded Age architect, I. J. Galbraith, designed the Harvat Block, which was completed in 1890. Although Harvat initially intended the building for his meat market, he ultimately decided to open his shop a few doors down, keeping this building as an investment property. For most of its history, saloons and an occasional restaurant occupied the first floor. During Prohibition, the storefront was home to a billiards hall and “soft drinks parlor.” The second story hosted, at various times, lodge rooms, hotel rooms, furnished rooms and, very briefly, a noodle parlor run by former railway worker Fukutaro Akao. The building’s architectural exuberance reflects Livingston’s unbridled optimism and the nation’s taste for flashy ornamentation during the late 1880s and early 1890s. Noteworthy features include the rounded, Romanesque style, second-story windows, elaborate corbelled (stepped) brickwork, a stone stringcourse, and a striking, galvanized iron cornice and pediment.
]]>Jacob T. Gove, a miner and assayer, developed the Bonanza Chief gold mine near Montana City in 1883, netting over $9,000 from three carloads of ore. With his small fortune, he opened an assay office, built the house next door at 229 for his family, and this brick home as a rental property. Residential land was in short supply during Helena’s heady 1880s, as evidenced by the proximity of the north neighbor. Attorney J. M. Clements, later a well-known district court judge, lived here in 1889. The Goves lived here from 1890 until 1891 when they sold both houses to Julia Otto for $5,000. Mrs. Otto lived next door with boarders and rented this house to tenants, including office clerks, cooks, and in 1900, bartender John Milch and his wife Ida. In 1914, German immigrant William E. Mundt purchased both houses. Mundt worked for the A. M. Holter Hardware Co. for fifty years. He applied stucco to the brick walls, most likely following Helena’s devastating October 1935 earthquakes. Although stucco covers the original brick, the tall windows and interior fir floors are original.
]]>This building began as a one-story, wood-frame grocery store on Main Street in 1883. In 1885, owner David Cohen Sr. sided it with brick veneer, giving it a more permanent appearance. Soon after, a fire broke out, destroying nearly everything on the west side of Main, except for Cohen’s brick-clad store. To make way for a new fireproof brick store on Main, Cohen split this building in two and moved it here. By 1891, Cohen’s Commercial Street store offered clothing, liquor, and meats. A steam laundry, blacksmith shop, and, later, a carriage repair shop occupied the space in the early 1900s. The Commercial Garage car dealership opened here in 1916. In 1918, it became the Trail Garage, which catered to wealthy motorists touring the country on the Yellowstone Trail. After 1920, an array of garages and used car businesses cycled through the building. Then, in 1941 Charles G. Johnson moved Park Motors auto and farm implement dealership here. Johnson added a second story and remodeled the exterior in the sleek Streamlined Moderne style. Park Motors remained an Anaconda fixture for more than seventy years.
]]>Gilman (Bill) and Pauline Norris had this spacious gambrel-roof house built in 1901 for $6,000. The Craftsman style home with its wraparound porch, stone fireplaces, and second-story balcony was a mansion compared to the Norris’s former three-room residence. A Civil War veteran, Bill had come west in 1867 as a surveyor for the Northern Pacific Railroad. In the 1870s, he served as a military scout as the U.S. Army forcibly removed Indigenous tribes to reservations. Norris bought out “merchant prince” T. C. Power’s local partner James Wells in 1883, and by 1885, he had developed Judith Landing into a small but thriving supply town for area ranchers. Norris and Power also formed a cattle operation, and by 1900 the Power-Norris or PN Ranch was one of the largest in the area. Sadly, a typhoid outbreak at Judith Landing killed Pauline in 1903, leaving Bill to raise their three young children. By 1908, he had remarried, sold his cattle, and become a hotel manager in Seattle. Although the Norrises only lived here a short time, the home is a reminder of the ranch’s high status.
]]>In 1877, a fast-moving flood damaged much of the original Fort Clagett trading post, located about a mile to the west. Consequently, manager James Wells moved the trading post here, out of harm’s way and closer to a safer river crossing. As steamboat traffic declined, Wells shifted his business to attract freighters, cattlemen, Indians, and miners, operating a blacksmith shop, saloon, hotel, stable, store, and ferry. He also established a post office in 1880. Initially, the post office—which operated only intermittently over the next three years—was likely located in the store. After Gilman R. (Bill) Norris bought out Wells in 1883, he received the contract to carry mail from Maiden (a mining camp sixty miles south) to Judith Landing the following year. In preparation, Norris improved the steep road out of the river bottom and built a “mail station” (or barn) and corral further west, at the mouth of Dog Creek. Sometime after 1890, the mail barn appears to have been moved from Dog Creek to this location for use as the post office. It remained in operation until May 15, 1919.
]]>After the U.S. military established Camp Cooke west of the Judith River in 1866, Fort Benton merchant Thomas C. Power built a trading post nearby to supply soldiers and area Indians. When Camp Cooke closed in 1870, Power renamed the post Fort Clagett and hired James Wells as manager. Through the 1870s, steamboat traffic and trade with Indians decreased, while cattle ranching grew. Wells moved the post east to this more advantageous river crossing in 1880, installed a cable ferry, opened the Judith post office, and started raising cattle. Although Wells’ health was failing, he and a carpenter spent six months building this sandstone and granite store/warehouse, which was completed in December 1882. Iron-clad doors fortified the store's entrance on the north wall, and teamsters could unload large quantities of beans, oats, whiskey, and other staples directly into a cellar door (removed) on the east wall. The store supplied the ranching community until 1934, when the building was converted into a barn by the PN Ranch. The original front façade collapsed in 1975, after high water undercut the north wall.
]]>Built between 1927 and 1930, this five-room, “strictly-modern” home was the only house on the block which had an attached garage. This adaptation to car culture suited Kalispell, many of whose residents were active in the “Good Roads” movement—an effort dedicated to promoting the construction of car-worthy streets and highways. James and Vera Bosworth, who likely built this ell-shaped, clipped gable residence, worked for the U.S. Forest Service (he as assistant supervisor of the Blackfeet National Forest, she as a clerk). The house’s arched entrance and asymmetrical composition are hallmarks of the English Tudor cottage style. In 1935, Harry Keith, treasurer of the Kalispell Mercantile, and his wife Katherine purchased the home, but they lived here only briefly. Jacobson family members were the longest residents. Farmers Hans and Beulah Jacobson moved to Kalispell in 1941 likely looking for refuge from eastern Montana’s extended drought. By 1951, they had bought this house, where they lived with six of their nine children. Their daughter Florence, a bookkeeper and champion bowler, remained in residence until 2019.
]]>Missoula architect A. J. Gibson, known for civic buildings like the Missoula County Courthouse and grand residences like the Daly Mansion in Hamilton, also designed smaller homes. The populist architect believed that all Americans deserved high-quality homes built “with a view to convenience and economy.” Gibson designed this house for Charles and Alice Owen. Like many of Gibson’s homes, this one features a standard Queen Anne style floor plan. The balustrade topping the front porch and stone foundation are Gibson trademarks. He also incorporated Colonial Revival style elements, including porch columns and exaggerated pediments on the dormers. Bricklayer and contractor Charles Owen built this house circa 1902 and at least three other dwellings in the 700 and 800 blocks of Monroe. In 1908, the Owens sold the residence to Harry H. and Mary Gilbert Hughes. The Hughes family owned the Hughes Gardens, a truck-farm business near Hell Gate Canyon that contributed to Missoula’s reputation as the “Garden City.” It operated from 1909 to 1971. In the early days, Hughes Gardens sold vegetables to Garnet and Philipsburg; later they sold vegetables as far as Billings.
]]>Few Montana places encompass as much varied history as Judith Landing. For millennia, Native peoples used this wide landing spot as a seasonal campground and burial site. Captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark camped nearby in May 1805, naming the Judith River after Clark’s future wife. Fur traders and naturalists also used the landing. Nearby, in 1855, paleontologist Ferdinand Hayden collected the first skeletal dinosaur remains officially documented in North America. Important tribal peace councils brought numerous Indigenous people to Council Island in September 1846 and October 1855. The first council forged peace between the Blackfeet and several western tribes. The second, called Lame Bull’s treaty, established boundaries for a communal hunting ground and paved the way for non-Indian settlement. In 1866, the U.S. Army built Camp Cooke west of the Judith River to protect steamboats. Soon, merchant Thomas C. Power set up a commissary and trading post nearby to supply the camp. After Camp Cooke closed in 1870, Power and his partner, James Wells, bought the camp and renamed it Fort Clagett. Circa 1880, Wells moved Fort Clagett here, just east of the Judith, drove the ranch's founding cattle up from Texas, established a post office, and built a stone warehouse and store. As ranching flourished in the area, Gilman R. Norris took charge in 1883 and with Power started the Judith Mercantile and Cattle Co., also known as the PN Ranch. Norris’s elegant 1901 ranch house still reflects the high status of the PN and brings attention to this multi-faceted historic landscape.
]]>Designated a National Historic Landmark in 1965 and a National Monument in 2001, Pompeys Pillar is nationally significant for the hundreds of historical markings, pictographs, petroglyphs, and inscriptions on its walls. These include the signature of Captain William Clark of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. On their return from the Pacific, Captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark decided to split up to explore the country more thoroughly. Sacagawea and her eighteen-month-old son, Jean Baptiste Charbonneau (nicknamed “Pompey”), traveled with Clark. On July 25, 1806, Clark and his party arrived at this prominent rock formation, visible from the Yellowstone River. Clark stopped to climb the tower, which he named after young Jean Baptiste. He also etched his name and the date in the soft sandstone. His signature joined numerous petroglyphs—carved images of animals, shields, and other signs—created by American Indians who made their home here, including the Crow (Apsáalooke). One Apsáalooke name for this sacred site is Iishbíiammaache, “Where the Mountain Lion Lies.” Because the formation is a recognizable landmark located at a natural river crossing, the Apsáalooke often came here to hunt bison, trade with their allies, the Nez Perce and the Shoshones, and perform rituals. In 1805, French-Canadian fur trader Francois Antoine Larocque visited the site. On the sandstone tower he saw “sketched with red earth a battle between three people on horseback and three others on foot.” Later Euro-Americans also carved their names into the rock, including crew members of the steamboat Josephine in 1875 and infantrymen commanded by Colonel John Gibbon in 1876.
]]>Rich silver deposits in the Little Belt Mountains brought the Montana Central (later Great Northern) Railway to Monarch in 1890. Soon spur lines branched out to the nearby mining towns of Barker, Hughesville, and Neihart. After the original depot burned in 1900, a replacement was built using a similar plan. Oriented so the long axis aligns to the tracks, the classic, small-town “combination” depot contains four rooms. To the north is a large freight and baggage room with pocket-style freight doors on both the home track and town sides to facilitate the movement of goods. A small ticket office sits in the center of the building. To the south are two rooms: a waiting room and the depot agent’s living quarters. Just outside, the double outhouse follows the Great Northern’s standard six-foot-by-six-foot privy design. It is one of two known remaining Great Northern depot privies still standing in Montana. The depot received stock ordered by local businesses and timber, steel, and equipment used to build area mines. In return, it shipped out ore from area mines and agricultural products from local farms. Passengers included leisure seekers from Great Falls, who arrived on chartered excursion trains. In the 1910s, a “fish train” left Great Falls every Sunday at 6:15 a.m., bringing anglers as well as small fish in ten-gallon milk cans to stock area fishing holes. As the mining industry declined, and automobiles’ popularity increased, the Great Northern Railway closed the line. Many locals boarded the last train on November 3, 1945, for the final run.
]]>In 1882, Billy Miles opened a livery and sale stable on lower Main Street. Among his customers were the Northern Pacific stockyards, Yellowstone National Park, and the British army. In 1906, Billy and his brothers, Tom and Boyd, constructed this 75,000-bushel grain elevator. It is one of two such structures built in Livingston to store the wagonloads—and later truckloads—of wheat harvested by area farmers. To support the weight and pressure of the grain within, the elevator’s lower stories were built of heavy timbers and “cribbed” (or stacked) lumber. Metal sheeting protected the structure from both weather and from stray sparks thrown off by passing trains. Originally a “chop house” for producing feed also stood at the building’s northeast end. When farmers delivered their grain, it was weighed and unloaded into the area under the elevator. The grain moved up to the headhouse via the “legs”—three vertical belt-and-bucket conveyor belts encased in wooden shafts. From there, operators would send the grain back down chutes into one of the many reinforced bins on the lower levels. When markets were favorable, the grain was loaded onto railcars for shipment to national and international markets. The grain elevator has had several owners over the years, including Walter and Dick Teslow (1952-1971), whose ghost sign still announces their products: “Grain, Seed, Feed, and Hay.” After ceasing operation in 2000, the elevator came under threat of demolition. In response, in 2016, the local community rallied to “Save the Teslow,” preserving it for future generations.
]]>Anaconda Copper Mining Company carpenter Daniel R. Beck built this small brick building in 1896. He lived in one half and rented out the other half. Beck was an early resident of Anaconda, arriving in 1883 when it was still a hodgepodge of shacks and tents. After Beck died in 1901, the building housed an ever-changing array of tenants and businesses. Irish widow Margaret Crews operated a dressmaking shop in 1905 and 1906. Patrick C. Reagan ran a barber shop from 1908 to 1909 when he left Anaconda to pursue gold mining at Pike’s Peak, Colorado. Greek cook Gus Olanes opened the Plaza Café in 1917 with the slogan, “Good Food Makes Good Health.” In 1921, Olanes paid waitresses $17.50 a week (Union waitresses made $22.50). A large T-bone steak with potatoes, bread and butter, and coffee or milk cost sixty cents. Croatian Paul Kriskov operated a café here from 1923 to 1930. Kriskov’s enormous menu offered steaks and chops, fish, Truzzolino’s tamales, chile con carne, and upscale entrées. Breaded veal cutlets with new potatoes in cream cost fifty cents.
]]>In 1865, on this site, the Montana Bowling Saloon offered “good exercise, choice Liquors and Cigars,” at fifty cents a roll. Circa 1873, contractor and lumber dealer William Thompson replaced that building with a Greek Revival storefront, whose ornamental cornice looked much like the one next door. Thompson’s partners J. M. Herndon and W. M. Donaldson operated a furniture store here as well as a lumberyard to the left of the building. Thompson and Donaldson left the partnership by 1888, but Herndon stayed on for over forty years. Like many furniture stores, the shop also sold “coffin trimmings” and caskets. For furniture-makers, making coffins—a deceased’s last piece of furniture—was a logical offshoot. Herndon closed the business, which had added undertaking services, circa 1917. The building then became home to the Virginia City Woman’s Club library until the Thompson-Hickman Library opened in 1922. After the library opened, B. T. Fayle purchased the property, where according to locals, he ran a bootleg saloon during Prohibition. In 1947, The Tavern Saloon opened here, continuing in operation until 1978.
]]>Over three hundred people from the Flatwillow community attended the grand opening dance of the partially completed Howard Lepper Memorial Hall on June 28, 1921. A few days later, the community held a July 4 celebration, welcoming residents from all over the county. The event included a tug-of-war, beauty contest, picnic dinner, politician’s speech, and dance. A reporter from the Winnett Times described the Flatwillow community as “one large family” and declared that their new gathering place was a fitting tribute to Howard Lepper. Lepper, a Flatwillow resident and cashier at the First State Bank in Winnett, died of the Spanish flu in 1918 at age thirty-four. His uncle, Benjamin F. Lepper, donated $1,000 toward construction of the hall, which in turn brought numerous smaller donations from the community. Shortly after the hall was officially complete, tragedy struck when it mysteriously burned to the ground on May 3, 1926. Undeterred, Flatwillow residents moved rapidly to rebuild “bigger and better,” holding the first dance on the subfloor less than three months later. The new stage was centered on the wide side of the building, creating a much larger dance floor. When fully finished in 1929, the Craftsman-style hall featured exterior stucco walls and an interior tin ceiling (for improved fire safety). Since then—with only a brief closure during World War II—this historic hall has served, and continues to serve, its community as a welcoming place for celebrations, gatherings, and public events.
]]>In 1864, the U.S. government gave the Northern Pacific Railroad a land grant of almost 40 million acres, over 17 million of which were in Montana. In 1926, Eli and Tine Laird purchased a thousand of those acres from the Northern Pacific in the Upper Swan Valley. There they built Laird Lodge with the help of their son-in-law John Stark. In 1939, John, with a small crew, built his own home on land he and his wife Marie were given by her parents .3 miles from the lodge. John paid six dollars for larch logs, which he harvested from nearby Forest Service land and undoubtedly acquired the stone for the chimney locally as well. Construction was almost entirely completed with hand tools: axes, hand saws, crosscut saws, chisels, adzes, and drawknives. John’s skill as a homebuilder is particularly evident in the daubing, which overlays expertly cut split pole chinking between the logs. The interior, particularly the spiral larch log staircase with a curved sapling railing, also demonstrates John’s craftsmanship. The house doubled as John’s workshop, where he carved wood sculptures and crafted log furniture, which Marie upholstered. Many of their original pieces still furnish the house. Unlike hastily built nineteenth-and early-twentieth-century log cabins, which were intended to be replaced when time and money allowed, the Stark home was built to last. In this it resembled the Rustic-style log buildings that had become fashionable for vacation properties (like Laird Lodge), and which incorporated modern comforts while reflecting a nostalgia for simpler times.
]]>Two forges and an interior wood partition seared with the impressions of cattle brands manufactured on site attest to this property’s long history as a blacksmith shop. Canadian immigrant Treffle Bergeron opened (and likely built) the lot’s first smithy circa 1899. In 1913, Bergeron sold the property, and by 1916, blacksmith and mechanic Frank Quinn opened his long-running business. The next year, Quinn built this large building, which encompassed the original blacksmith shop; one portion of the original shop’s exterior walls remains intact within the seventy-five-by-one-hundred-foot garage. Quinn chose to build with cast concrete block. A popular construction material in the 1910s, cast concrete block was as fireproof as stone—important for a blacksmith shop—but much less expensive. Like many blacksmiths, Quinn’s business adapted to the era’s rapidly changing technology. While continuing to work as a blacksmith, Quinn expanded his services to meet the needs of local farmers and ranchers, repairing horse-drawn and motorized farm implements as well as automobiles. Tall roof trusses and oversized wooden swinging doors on the west elevation made it easier to accommodate oversized agricultural equipment. The entrepreneurial Quinn also sold radios, tires, and cars; he was a licensed dealer for Durant, Chalmers, and Chrysler automobiles. Active in Republican politics, Quinn hosted regular gatherings at the garage, from voter registration drives to post-county commission meeting socials. Quinn died in 1943. Five years later Richard Kenck purchased the property, where he worked as a welder and mechanic and maintained an International Harvester dealership until his retirement in 1975.
]]>The Anaconda Copper Mining Company (ACM) built this home circa 1897 as a company house. Its cross-gabled roof, three-part windows with stained-glass border panes, and turned porch posts mark it as a classic Queen Anne style cottage. The first known residents were William and Nellie Fisk in 1903. William Fisk was manager of the Valley Mercantile—the ACM company store—and Nellie stayed home with their children Roy and Page. In 1905, William became manager of the Hamilton Hotel, where the Fisks eventually moved after 1915. Various families, often associated with the Valley Mercantile or the Bitterroot Stock Farm, rented the home over the next twenty years. In 1936, widow Christina Kippen purchased the home from the Stock Farm and moved here with her sons from the family ranch. Her husband Marcus Kippen had been a surveyor at the Stock Farm for forty years. Christina was a fifty-year member of the Order of the Eastern Star and active with the Hamilton Presbyterian Church’s Ladies Aid Society. Among other family activities and social gatherings, her home was the scene of many card parties.
]]>Most of Marcus Daly’s Bitter Root Stock Farm managers were men who lived in fine family homes in the Southside Addition along Fourth and Fifth streets. Unmarried, professional female employees typically lived with relatives or at a boardinghouse. Laura B. Jones was a notable exception. Jones started her business career as a bookkeeper at Valley Mercantile in the 1910s. She became secretary at the Bitter Root Stock Farm office in 1918, and in 1923 she purchased this Queen Anne style cottage from the Stock Farm. The home consists of two separate buildings moved from the Stock Farm circa 1909 and joined together on three lots. In addition to managing Stock Farm affairs, Jones was a partner in the Security Abstract and Title Company and co-founded the Hamilton Business and Professional Women’s Club. In 1930, when she was fifty-one, she married Herbert E. Jones, a widowed stenographer and owner of the View Acres nursery. He died suddenly in 1932, but Laura kept View Acres and her Stock Farm position until she retired in 1948. She remained in residence until her death in 1967.
]]>The Imperial Meat Market specialized in fresh meat, sausage, game, fish, and oysters when D. D. Walker and Israel Gibbs opened it in a wood-frame building on this lot in 1889. Shop foreman Albert Bourbonniere, in partnership with Big Hole Valley rancher John Wenger, bought the business by 1905. Wenger left the partnership in 1910 and Bourbonniere died in 1912, bequeathing the building to Croatian butcher Rudolph Sokolich. In 1916, Sokolich and his partner Barney McTigue had the original building demolished and hired contractors to build this brick commercial building. The Imperial reopened in December 1916 with architect James Calloway Teague renting the rooms on the second floor. After 1918, Thomas Robinson operated the upstairs as a boardinghouse. Boarders paid three dollars a week for rent. When Sokolich closed the meat market in the 1930s, he moved into the building and rented out rooms until his death in 1952. Later owners remodeled the building to house a saloon on the first floor, but the meat market’s name plate, original side entry, and prismatic glass panels remain.
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