In 1935, Fred and Virginia Browning hired renowned Bozeman architect Fred Willson to design their home. Willson first proposed a traditional Cape Cod style, aligned with local architectural tastes, but Fred Browning rejected it requesting a bold International Style design instead. Browning—who had attended the 1934 Chicago World’s Fair—preferred the homes showcased at the fair. These “Homes of Tomorrow” reflected a striking new vision: flat roofs, smooth stucco walls, wrap-around corner windows, and steel railings. Completed in 1936, the Browning’s house became one of Bozeman’s architectural experiments. While the International Style reshaped major urban skylines, it never took hold in Montana’s neighborhoods. With just one counterpart nearby on Arthur Street, the Browning Residence is a rare example of interwar modernism. The Brownings raised two daughters here and maintained the home for more than fifty years. Fred, a salesman, was also remembered as a member of the celebrated 1928–29 Montana State “Golden Bobcats” national championship basketball team. Virginia, a homemaker, helped preserve regional history as secretary-treasurer of the Sons and Daughters of Gallatin Pioneers. The home remains a distinctive architectural outlier representing Bozeman’s brief, elegant brush with the future.
]]>As settlers in the Bitterroot Valley pursued timber and farmland in the late nineteenth century, a mysterious illness appeared each spring bearing dramatic symptoms and a high mortality rate. Theories on Rocky Mountain spotted fever’s origins ranged from melting snow and decaying tree foliage to sawmill waste and household garbage. By 1908, pathologist Howard Taylor Ricketts proved that tick bites transmitted the bacterium that caused spotted fever. Ricketts’s untimely death and a state budget shortage in 1910 shifted efforts towards tick eradication rather than disease research. However, when spotted fever killed eleven Bitterroot residents including a state senator and his wife in 1921, a third wave of research began here at the recently vacated Canyon Creek schoolhouse. With electric lights, heating, and ample space, the then substantial two-story brick building was a major improvement over previous makeshift field stations. Lab employees faced hazardous conditions. Several contracted spotted fever at work and three died. A large sign posted outside the laboratory warned visitors that they entered at their own risk. In 1924, entomologist Ralph R. Parker and physician Roscoe R. Spencer developed a vaccine that, although time-consuming and expensive to produce, could prevent severe illness and death from spotted fever. Half a million people received the Spencer-Parker vaccine until the discovery of broad-spectrum antibiotics in the 1940s made it obsolete. In 1928, the team relocated to the new Rocky Mountain Laboratory in Hamilton. Despite later radical remodels, the “schoolhouse lab” remains a symbol of a critical turning point in the fight against spotted fever.
]]>This high, rocky outcropping above the confluence of the Yellowstone River and Alkali Creek is central to interpreting Billings area history. For millennia, the Apsáalooke (Crow) Nation used this area for camping and spiritual activities such as fasting, vision quests, and burials. William Clark and members of the Corps of Discovery passed nearby in 1806 on their way back to the Missouri River, signaling change and conflict as Euro-Americans encroached into Indigenous homelands. Piikuni (Blackfeet) warriors killed a group of fur trappers near here in 1823, a smallpox epidemic decimated a nearby Apsáalooke camp, and the Baker Fight five miles northeast ignited tensions between the U.S. Army and numerous Indigenous nations in 1872. Despite bloody battles between the Army and Indian nations to the south in 1876-77, a group of Bozeman businessmen established a town near this site in 1877. Although they strategically located it along the future Northern Pacific Railway route, they named it Coulson after the steamboat company, the Coulson Packet Line. Residents soon established their town cemetery here next to The Place of the Skulls, an Apsáalooke burial site. When the Northern Pacific platted Billings to the west in 1882, Coulson residents moved to Billings, leaving only the cemetery to mark its existence. Ignatius D. O’Donnell, the influential Billings civic leader, irrigation expert, and community historian, later became owner of the Coulson cemetery. He preserved it and built a river stone obelisk in 1920 to mark the burials. O’Donnell later deeded the cemetery to Billings, and a system of parks and trails has since developed from it.
]]>In 1885, commissioners replaced the county’s first eighteen-bed “poor farm” hospital (1871) with a two-story, one-hundred-bed brick hospital. Although county inspectors generally found the “inmates” comfortable and well-cared-for, they sometimes pointed to problems such as the septic system backing into the well, straw-filled mattresses lacking sheets, and poor-quality food. After 1935 earthquakes destroyed the brick hospital, the county rebuilt it with an $80,000 bond and federal Public Works Administration funds. Prominent Billings architect John G. Link and Helena architect Edwin B. Benson designed the Late Art Deco/Early Moderne building, which opened in 1939. Decorative tiles and the central entry’s vertical emphasis reflect 1920s Art Deco influences, while the building’s horizonal massing, sleek lines, and smooth stucco walls evoke the 1930s Early Moderne style. Residents passed time playing cards, resting, reading donated books and magazines, tending gardens and livestock, and watching community programs. Staff cooked meals, washed laundry, and provided medical care. Many residents lived here until their deaths; others left periodically, but often returned. By 1961, the average patient’s age was 81, and the hospital officially became a convalescent home.
]]>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.
]]>Hillcrest Cemetery—one of Montana’s oldest existing active cemeteries—preserves the area’s history and the legacies of the families buried here. Graves dating from 1870 to the present mark the final resting place of more than 4,600 Deer Lodge area citizens. Residents created Hillcrest Cemetery when encroaching development impacted the city’s first urban burial grounds. By 1871, burials were well underway when landowner and mining investor Edwin H. Irvine officially donated ten acres on this hillside. The original cemetery plan featured four quadrants divided by an east-west and north-south wagon road. City officials laid out sections for Protestants, Catholics, Masons, and other fraternal organizations. In the 1880s, the city added sections for soldiers and prisoners, and in the early 1900s, Japanese railroad workers. Most of the earliest markers were wood though some were imported marble. In the mid-1880s, talented tombstone makers such as A. K. Prescott and George Pringle began creating skillfully carved and personalized monuments. Zinc markers, flat upright gravestones, tall obelisks, and flat stone markers were typical of the 1890s and early 1900s. Prominent grave markers recall wealthy ranchers and businessmen such as Thomas, James, and Granville Stuart; Conrad, Augusta, and William Kohrs; and the Bielenberg family. The ornate wrought-iron enclosure and distinctive marble gravestone marking copper king William A. Clark’s two children reflects the area’s late-nineteenth-century mining wealth. John G. Morony’s architect-designed Greek Revival style mausoleum recalls Montana’s early-twentieth-century prosperity. In contrast, twenty-four tombstones of Japanese residents and many unmarked and austere gravestones in the prison section bear quiet witness to the lives of these marginalized populations.
]]>Traveling through southeastern Montana in 1883, naturalist, writer, and future United States President Theodore Roosevelt was struck by what he called the Medicine Buttes. He wrote, “Altogether it was as fantastically beautiful a place as I have ever seen: it seemed impossible that the hand of man should not have had something to do with its formation.” Indeed, mother nature spent millions of years crafting this landmark, but the hand of humans here cannot be ignored. Thousands of men and women recorded their history here, transforming the perforated sandstone monuments into a historical register with initials, names, dates, and images carved in soft stone. Petroglyphs of warriors and animals mark hundreds of years of use by indigenous people who harvested medicinal plants and performed ceremonies and religious rituals. The Lakota aptly named it “Inyan oka-lo-ka” or “Rock with a Hole in it.” European explorers, and later trappers and traders, passed through and left their marks in the early 1800s. Gold seekers came through after 1862, and then a steady influx of cowboys, ranchers, homesteaders, laborers, and tourists left basic but rich information that often connects them with pivotal state, national, and world events. County officials maintained the Medicine Rocks as a park beginning in the 1930s, and it became a Montana state park in 1957. The vast collection of inscriptions at Medicine Rocks serve as enticing clues about the history of human occupation here, and with more research can yield volumes about the cultural traditions and family histories of its visitors.
]]>Famous yet nearly forgotten feminist writer Mary Elizabeth MacLane wrote her groundbreaking autobiographical book in the north half of this brick bay-fronted multi-family residence in 1901. The Story of Mary MacLane—originally titled I Await the Devil’s Coming—captivated young adults and shocked conservative readers with its confessional, often sensual portrayal of Mary’s life at age nineteen. Soon after its release in April 1902, fans flocked to this building hoping to meet the frank author who described Butte as all “sand and barrenness” and “the near perfection of ugliness.” Although the 1898 building was nearly new when Mary’s family moved here in 1900, the neighborhood was bleak. Loaded ore cars rumbled past day and night on tracks a half-block away, and scrubby undeveloped lots surrounded her Upper West Side home. Mary moved to Boston in 1903 but returned in 1909 to live with her family on Diamond Street. Though her fame had faded by the time she died in 1929, her work gained renewed attention in the 1970s. Efforts to restore the building to its early 1900s character began in 2006.
]]>Architect Glen C. McAllister and wife Beatrice built this classic Craftsman style bungalow in June 1915. The home’s full front porch with square, tapered columns and shingled dormer are typical stylistic elements. Glen worked with prominent local architect John G. Link before starting his own firm. During his prolific career Glen designed bungalows, mansions, and civic and commercial buildings in Billings, Sheridan, Wyoming, and Los Angeles, California. It is likely he designed this and other area homes. In 1920, civil engineer Ralph Fifield and wife Ola purchased the home. Ralph—known as the “dean of Montana engineers”—had worked for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, supervising construction of the Huntley Project, a massive irrigation effort to transform 35,000 acres of arid sagebrush prairie into productive farmland. After moving to this home, Ralph operated an irrigation consulting firm and, in 1936, became district supervisor for the Works Projects Administration (WPA). Ola stayed home to raise their three children, hosted Bridge Club parties, and was President of the Masonic De Molay Mother’s Circle Club. The Fifields remained in residence until 1942.
]]>Two years after designing the elegant Napton and Leonard apartments on Granite Street, architect William O’Brien designed this building for widow Mary O’Rourke in 1908. O’Brien, whose clients ranked among Butte’s wealthiest, designed the O’Rourke as a detached addition to the older Merrimac House apartments behind it. The Merrimac, built at the rear of this lot for John and Mary O’Rourke in 1892, was originally attached to their home. John O’Rourke was one of the few Virginia City miners who made substantial money in placer mining. He wisely invested his profits in Butte real estate, wholesale liquor, and a boot and shoe store. After his death in 1907, Mary had contractors remove the O’Rourke home, build the new O’Rourke building, and add bay windows and grand stone embellishments to the Merrimac, stylistically marrying the two buildings. The resulting Eclectic style buildings provided sophisticated quarters for teachers, machinists, and clerks, and also for Mary and her daughter, Marie. They managed the sizeable O’Rourke estate until Mary’s death in 1949. Marie lived in Unit E and managed the substantial estate until 1979.
]]>Prominent Missoula architect A. J. Gibson designed this fine Neoclassical style residence for Joseph and Barbara Redle in 1902, and contractors completed it in 1906. A shingled pediment with a half-circle window, Doric columns, and a wide entry with leaded glass windows define its style. While Gibson’s design for the nearby Joseph Dixon residence boasts far more ornamentation, the Redle residence reflects Gibson’s ability to tailor his designs to his customers’ taste and budget. Joseph, a brewer, was treasurer of the Garden City Brewing Company, and Barbara stayed home to raise their three daughters. In 1916, after the city completed the Pine Street boulevard, the Missoula Women’s Club proposed changing the street name to Worden Way to honor civic leader Frank Worden. Barbara, with dozens of other Pine Street women signed a petition in protest, stating that “Mrs. F. L. Worden named Pine Street and we, … respectfully ask that the name … be not changed in any way.” The Redles were divorced by 1920, and Barbara sold the home in 1922 to Northern Pacific Railway machinist Eugene Wigal and his wife Anna.
]]>Reno and Lorene Sales purchased this Prairie style home circa 1910. Known as “the father of mining geology,” Reno Sales worked forty years as the Anaconda Company’s chief geologist. Early in his career, the Apex Law—a federal statute that allowed claim owners to follow mineral veins from where they surfaced (the apex) anywhere underground—resulted in hundreds of court cases. To defend Anaconda's rich ore holdings, Sales developed a geological field mapping system that became the industry standard. Lorene hosted Homer Club meetings where Butte’s elite women discussed history, literature, and current events. Meningitis claimed their first daughter’s life in 1911; they welcomed daughter Barbara in 1913. Lorene left Butte in 1926 so Barbara could attend the Castilleja School, a girls prep school in Palo Alto, California, founded by Helena’s Mary Lockey. Reno continued to work in Butte but rented the house to Harry and Polly Cochrane. Harry, Montana Power’s chief engineer, also sent his daughter to Castilleja. When Barbara Sales died in a car accident in 1934, the Cochrane family hosted her funeral at the home.
]]>Author Helen Fitzgerald Sanders and her husband—lawyer Louis P. Sanders—built this Queen Anne style home in 1904. The home’s prominent curved wraparound porch, Tuscan columns, spindlework balustrade, and stone retaining wall reflect the Sanders’ wealth and status. Louis was the son of Wilbur Fisk Sanders, a Montana pioneer lawyer, first president of the Montana Historical Society, and the state’s first U.S. Senator. Louis attended Harvard Law School and served in the Spanish-American War. He and Helen married in 1900 and he became a partner at Butte’s Kremer, Sanders, and Kremer law firm. While living here, Helen raised seven children (five survived) and published articles, poetry, and numerous books, including Trails Through the Western Woods (1911) and the massive three-volume History of Montana (1913). She was a member of the Butte Women’s Club, the Homer Club, and worked closely with Jeanette Rankin to secure the vote for Montana women in 1914. She and Louis divorced in 1919, and Helen traveled the world before settling in Washington, D.C. Helen, the eldest Sanders daughter, lived here from 1930 to 1935 with her husband George and their children.
]]>After World War I, Montana entered a recession, and construction slowed dramatically. By 1922, however, Bozeman’s economy had rebounded, and new homes began to fill the vacant lots near downtown and the college. Montana State College chemistry professor Oden E. Sheppard and wife Dorothy purchased this side-gable Craftsman bungalow in 1922 when it was new. The home’s central shed-roof dormer, mix of clapboard and shingle siding, and wide overhanging eaves with exposed rafter tails are stylistic hallmarks. Oden was chemistry department chair from 1931 until his retirement in 1946. He was a founder of the American Chemical Society, chairman of the Rhodes Scholarship committee, and lectured in the community on chemical warfare. Dorothy stayed home to raise ten children in the modest four-bedroom home. In her free time, she organized meetings and gave lectures as chair of the Bozeman Woman’s Club Child Welfare section. Two of the Sheppards' sons and one daughter graduated from Montana State with chemistry degrees and helped establish the O. E. Sheppard Scholarship for chemistry majors. The Sheppards moved to a larger home in 1935.
]]>Tucked away on the steep slope of Nanny Goat Hill, this 1899 Queen Anne style home suffered years of neglect until the Butte Historic Trust rescued it from collapse in 2021. Rehabilitation efforts secured the foundation, restored the brick and shingle siding, and replaced the missing turned posts, scrolled brackets, and spindlework frieze on the distinctive front porch. Many of the home’s early occupants reflected the neighborhood’s thriving Irish population. Police chief William Dawson, his wife Nellie, and their children lived here from 1899 to 1904. Irish widow Mary Murphy, her four children, and boarders lived here from 1907 to 1913, followed by Hennessey’s Department store manager James Murphy and wife Agnes from 1913 to 1919. Irish immigrants and newlyweds Jeremiah “Jerry” and Mary Egan purchased the home in 1919. Jerry, a mine shift boss, fell ill in 1924 and died of lung disease at age forty-three in 1926. Mary persevered, raising her young sons on her own and renting rooms to make ends meet. Both sons earned degrees in engineering and Mary remained here until she died in 1966.
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