Only seven years after organizing, the Helena chapter of the Young Women’s Christian Association, Independent, opened this residential building for the city’s young working women in 1918. Founded by women from most of Helena’s churches and synagogues, the local chapter is today the only Independent YWCA in the nation, welcoming both Christian and non-Christian members. Although the chapter chose not to join the national organization, it too strived to improve conditions for the working woman. In a time of dramatic change in traditional roles, this building welcomed young women with safe housing, and with practical classes such as typewriting and sewing machine operation, and also more intellectual courses such as astronomy and physiology. Adult recreational sports, child care, and children’s day camps also were organized. The building was designed by Chester H. Kirk and built of locally made bricks from the Kessler Brick Yard by Frank Jacoby and Son. It combines decorative detailing common to both Craftsman and Classical styles of architecture. This includes simulated quoining in brick at the corners, a soldier course that wraps around the building between the basement and first floor levels, a brick belt course at the sill level of the second floor windows, and stacked brick window surrounds. Public rooms occupy the first floor interior, with 43 bedrooms—all finished with maple, birch and white pine—on the upper floors.
]]>Once considered the “wrong side of the tracks,” Minnesota Avenue was known for its many bars, brothels, cigar stores, and Chinese restaurants. (Chinese districts often bordered red light districts, serving inexpensive food to the working women and other patrons.) Around 1893, German saloon keeper and landlord Nicholas Klos built this small brick building, which is among the oldest commercial structures in Billings. He converted it into two storefronts by 1896. Characteristically, one side housed a saloon, the other a cigar store. He removed the interior wall around 1900, when Frank Young opened a Chinese restaurant. The building later became a billiards hall. In the 1920s, Keene Auto Company remodeled and expanded the premises for a service station and auto repair shop. Prohibition ended in 1933, and the business returned to its roots when the Yukon Bar opened two years later. The Yukon, open into the 1980s, became a Billings institution—a place where tourists went to gawk and sheepherders to drink. An extensive restoration project, completed in 2008, replaced missing and altered architectural elements. The storefront now looks much as it did in 1901.
]]>An optimistic, cheerful nature and keen sense of humor helped make legislator, contractor, and engineer David Manning instrumental in getting Montana “out of the mud.” A champion of Montana’s rural communities, Manning initiated significant improvements across Montana’s sparsely populated areas: electricity, paved roads, dams, and irrigation systems. Nicknamed “The Fox” for his clever solutions to difficult problems, Manning was a fair and patient leader of true vision, who could often cross political party lines when others could not. He served in the Montana House and Senate from 1932 to 1985, longer than any other legislator in the nation at the time of his retirement. Just before embarking upon his long political tenure, Manning and his brother, Jim, designed and built this Hysham landmark. The popularity of talking pictures had reached a peak, and the grandiose Mission style movie theater well represents the flamboyance typical of the 1930s theater design. Its construction in 1931 raised community morale and made the statement that Hysham would survive the Great Depression. In 1936, the stage behind the movie screen was eliminated and living accommodations added and later expanded, which served as the family home during Manning’s long political service. In 1992, the Manning heirs donated both theater and residence to the Treasure ‘89ers. Now a museum, they commemorate the town’s early development and the productive career of a widely acclaimed Montanan.
]]>A garage/automotive business has served the motoring public at this location since 1912, establishing a long pattern of similar use rarely found in Montana buildings. Although the building was possibly built as a livery stable, it was soon converted to an auto garage, which catered to US 2 travelers and local residents. In 1929, brothers Neil and Hollis Young bought the business, known in the 1920s as the Triple A Garage, and moved their automotive shop here from across the street. The Youngs owned the local Chevrolet dealership, and within five years they had also purchased Pontiac and Oldsmobile franchises, offering Chinook residents a fine choice of General Motors products. Typical of most small-town dealerships, gasoline and petroleum sales supplemented automotive sales and repair. Primarily an outlet for Conoco, the pumps also dispensed Grizzly gas from Cut Bank and Silver gas from Great Falls. In 1939, S. L. Taylor purchased the business and it remained the Taylor Motor Company until 1977. The gas pumps were removed and the franchise closed under owner Mike Tilleman in 1979. Former Tilleman employee Wesley Bevis purchased the facility in the early 1980s and opened his own business, Precision Auto Body, continuing the long tradition of auto service at this location. The building itself is an outstanding example of the Mission style, an architectural form not often found in the Rocky Mountain/Great Plains region. A splendid curvilinear parapet, capped pilasters, horizontal relief banding, and a smooth stucco exterior provide excellent expression of this style; its bold modernity reflects the spirited progressiveness of the early automotive era.
]]>Red Lodge was at the heart of a tourism boom in the 1950s when the federal Mission 66 program brought improvements to national parks. Visitors by the hundreds traveled over the stunning Beartooth Highway to Yellowstone Park. The Yodeler Motel, once one of several busy nearby hostelries during the “golden age” of motels, is Red Lodge’s most unique roadside inn. Its architectural layers illustrate its history first as an apartment building and later as Red Lodge’s first and only theme motel. Daniel O’Shea originally built the complex as an apartment building for working-class families in 1909. Residents were primarily European immigrants who worked in the Rocky Fork Coal Company’s nearby East Bench Mine. After the closure of the mines in the 1920s, many of its tenants stayed in Red Lodge to help build the Beartooth Highway during the Great Depression. For a short time beginning in the 1940s, a grocery store occupied the north end of the building. In 1961, local building contractor Al Sloulin purchased the property and transformed the simple brick apartments into a Bavarian-themed motel. Its guest rooms, large chalet entrance, decorative scrolled woodwork, historic signage, and southern German motifs continue to appeal to tourists and skiers who come to Red Lodge to enjoy the area’s recreational and scenic opportunities. The Yodeler Motel and its unique architecture symbolize Red Lodge’s history, first as a hard-working mining community and melting pot of different ethnic groups, and, more recently, as a popular destination for visitors from around the world.
]]>The Yellowstone River Bridge is the longest truss bridge built in Montana at 1,142 feet. It is also one of the few bridges built in Montana during World War II. During the 1930s, the Montana Highway Department welcomed an influx of New Deal money by embarking on ambitious road improvements, including building more than 1,000 bridges. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, however, bridge building screeched to a halt, except on roads designated as critical to national security. These included U.S. Highway 10, which connected Seattle to Minneapolis. Thus, in 1943, when an ice jam destroyed the bridge at Fallon, forcing motorists and critical war materials to make a 55-mile detour, the Secretary of Defense ordered the highway department to build a replacement. Specifically designed for wide river crossings, the steel and concrete bridge is a continuous span Warren through truss structure. The trusses are arranged in a “W” configuration that identifies them as Warren trusses. The highway department used this style of bridge from 1933 to 1946. Despite authorization from the War Production Board, labor and steel shortages slowed construction, as did high water and inclement weather. The W. P. Roscoe Company of Billings hired men from the Crow Reservation to help pour the concrete piers and subcontracted with another company to erect the steel trusses. To spectators’ amazement, crews worked high in the air, sauntering across I beams seventy feet above ground “as nonchalantly as if traveling on a broad highway.” The bridge opened to much fanfare in late November 1944.
]]>The remarkable geologic diversity and the age of rock formations in the Beartooth Mountains and Bighorn Basin fascinated Princeton University geology professors William Taylor Thom Jr. and Richard Field. In 1930, they founded the “Red Lodge Project” to conduct geological research and train students in field methods. The project’s success led to the construction of this research camp on the north slope of Mount Maurice. The non-profit Yellowstone Bighorn Research Association (YBRA) incorporated in 1936, and it became the first permanent geological research field station in Montana. Camp manager Roy Wadsworth supervised facility construction, building three log and stone buildings (the Fanshawe Lodge, Main Wash House, and Darton Dormitory) and fifteen wood-frame cabins. He used local materials and employed the vernacular Rustic style, harmonizing the camp with its natural surroundings and the majestic views of the surrounding area. The YBRA camp opened in July 1936 and has continuously operated since then, welcoming faculty, students, and researchers from universities and colleges across the United States. YBRA is nationally significant for its contributions to the advancement of geological research and education across geoscience. Multiple YBRA researchers identified and studied the “Stillwater Complex,” leading to platinum and palladium mining in Montana. The historic camp is a lasting testament to the scholars who mapped and studied this beautiful and rare geological region.
]]>Typical of the tiny dwellings that once lined Last Chance Gulch, this sturdy log cabin was one of the last built on the heels of the gold rush circa 1870. Its original occupants are unknown. From 1876 to 1886 the Yee Wau brothers, longtime local dealers in Chinese merchandise and groceries, owned the property. Despite discrimination and anti-Chinese legislation, Chinese immigrants comprised ten percent of Montana’s territorial population. These important pioneers made significant contributions especially in laying the tracks of the Northern Pacific across Montana in the 1880s. In Helena, Chinese citizens provided services, owned property, and paid taxes. Chinese dwellings, businesses, and expansive gardens spread for five blocks below Reeder’s Alley. As the male-dominated Chinese population dwindled by the late 1890s, others continued to occupy the tiny cabin. Clairvoyant Daniel J. Schraier hung his shingle here in 1899. In the 1970s, urban renewal erased all remnants of the Chinese community, sparing only this landmark. Its square- and quarter-hewn logs chinked with cement, wonderfully preserved, still provide a cozy home.
]]>The Flathead Monitor declared in 1899 that the west side was way ahead of the east side with “a new residence being started there about every day.” By 1900, streets and sidewalks had replaced the open prairie. This Queen Anne style home was one of the first in the neighborhood, constructed between 1891 and the turn of the century. Carpenter/teamster William Yanicke came to Kalispell from South Dakota in 1900, purchasing this property where he and his wife, Susan, were in residence by 1901. Yanicke served as street commissioner in the 1910s and later as foreman for the city engineer. When the couple moved out of town to operate a poultry farm in 1925, daughter Lydia Relter and her husband Nerlie, a Kalispell grocer, then lived here until 1938. The cross-gabled plan, mixed exterior sidings (clapboard and decorative shingle work in the gable ends), and front and side porches are classic elements of the Queen Anne style. The wraparound porch at the rear and south bay window, also distinguishing features of the style, were later additions.
]]>The cornerstone was laid in 1917 for this multi-purpose facility, designed by international Y.M.C.A architects. All contracting, however, went to local firms. The $350,000 building opened in 1919, entirely paid for by citizens’ contributions and built by local laborers. It was “in a very real sense a workingmen’s club.” The six-story landmark included a bowling alley, temperance bar, dormitory rooms, a cork-carpeted running track, and two-story gymnasium. Skylights originally brightened both the second-floor swimming pool and locker rooms, and the library was specially wired to accommodate a “moving motion picture machine” for use by mine rescue and first aid personnel. Following early-twentieth-century conventions, boys and men were strictly separated as the North Washington Street entry inscription “Boys Entrance” demonstrates. Today, the Y.M.C.A. is a fully integrated, co-educational facility.
]]>Scattered development marked this Butte neighborhood during the 1890s as the population grew and the demand for all types of housing increased. By 1900, few lots remained on this side of the block. Merchandise broker E. Walter Wynne, at this address as early as 1895, was likely the home’s first owner/occupant. Wynne, who later served as Butte’s police chief, lived here until about 1901 with his wife Nellie and two children. Michael V. Conroy, a self-employed insurance and real estate broker, had purchased the property by 1903, where he and his wife Estella raised their two children. The Conroys enlarged the home circa 1916 with an addition at the back. The residence changed owners in the late 1920s, and 1930s remodeling updated the Victorian era façade. A gabled and stuccoed vestibule with stick trim replaced the original front porch and small-paned casement windows were added to the first story. These dramatic changes stylistically transformed the home from vintage 1890s to the more modern English cottage.
]]>A torturous journey by covered wagon brought Frank and Ella Wurtz to this remote homestead in 1914. By 1917, the family included three children, so Frank built a larger cabin, reusing the logs of their first one-room dwelling. Proving a claim in the North Fork was a formidable task, and Frank did his best to clear and cultivate the required acreage. Even so, the Forest Service challenged the Wurtz claim in 1918, charging that not enough land had been cultivated. The protest was withdrawn, however, in 1919. A few months later, an arson fire consumed the family’s newly finished third cabin. Evidence suggested that the fire was a cover-up for the abduction of four-year-old Marie and two-year-old Harold; no trace of them was ever found. As the family dealt with this tragedy, title to the land was granted in 1920. Frank began to build the main house, but grief was hard to overcome; Frank, Ella, and nine-year-old Louise left the North Fork in 1922. A decade later, Frank and Ella returned with three children born in the interim. Frank then completed the log house and continued to improve the property until his failing health forced its sale in 1964. Today, the sturdy Wurtz cabin and house, representative of two building phases, are a lesson in perseverance and a tribute to the hardy North Fork settlers who carved homes out of the wilderness. Upon the transfer of ownership to the Forest Service in 1990, the Wurtz grandchildren wrote: “This land has been good to our family. The homestead was a labor of love, and it is with great love and respect that we now leave it.”
]]>The distinctive gambrel roof defines the Dutch Colonial style. The style takes its name from farmhouses Dutch settlers built in rural New York and New Jersey in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. However, twentieth-century Dutch Colonial Revival style homes only loosely resembled their historical counterparts. The style had the advantage of economy: the roof shape created second-story living space without the added expense of constructing full second-story walls. Equally, its simplicity appealed to twentieth-century builders looking for alternatives to the highly decorated Queen Anne style. The heavy oak doors, leaded and beveled glass windows, and stone fireplace of this circa 1910 home reflect the early-twentieth-century emphasis on quality materials and craftsmanship over ornamentation. Henry E. and Lura Wright were the home’s first known residents, and Henry—a house painter and sometime contractor—may well have had a hand in its construction. Henry came to Montana in 1883 to work as a cowboy. Later, he watched survey crews plat the town of Kalispell. The Wrights moved to Missoula in 1908 and lived here into the late 1930s.
]]>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.
]]>Although modest compared to Helena’s imposing West Side mansions of a slightly later period, this well-preserved home was very grand for its early date. Woodman S. Paynter arrived in Helena in 1868 and entered into a business partnership with Henry M. Parchen. He and Parchen, whose home was across the street, ran a retail drugstore. The Paynters’ two-story frame house, built between 1869 and 1875, retains many of its original details including graceful wooden porch columns, two original chimneys, and a pediment with dentil trim over the front door. By 1888, the Paynters had remodeled their house with a one-story addition on the south, likely to accommodate indoor plumbing. The outhouse at the back was incorporated into the family’s stable, enlarging it substantially. The Paynters lived here until 1893. Later tenants included the Salvation Army’s “rescue home” from 1896 to 1897. In the early 1910s, Reverend Jacob Alford, a Methodist minister, rented the residence. From at least 1915 to the early 1960s, various members of teamster Michael Murphy’s family resided here.
]]>In the earliest days before trees lined Kalispell’s residential streets, this was the town’s only wooded area. The dense, dark evergreens that surrounded a swamp were off limits to children because transients from the freight trains camped here and the mosquitoes were fierce. In 1903, the city acquired these 40 acres from the estate of pioneer businessman Charles Conrad. The area remained unimproved until 1911 when the city spent almost $4,000 draining the swamp, excavating for the lake, and landscaping. By 1912, residents enjoyed winter skating, skiing, and sledding on the grounds. A children’s playground, however, had to be removed because the park was still host to mosquitoes and hobos. With the help and cooperation of Mayor John Bruckhauser, the Works Projects Administration (WPA) transformed the “city’s swamp” into a recreational haven during the 1930s. The $120,000 project provided jobs for some 400 local workers and won recognition as one of the country’s “most unique and attractive civic improvements.” Today’s park offers recreational activities for all seasons, hosts weddings and family gatherings, and thus continues to be a favorite place for building memories.
]]>Brothers Burl and William Woodburn collaborated to construct this substantial commercial building in 1917. The Masonic Temple was located on the upper floor and the Woodburn Brothers Grocery occupied the ground space until the building changed hands in 1921. Its striking polychrome brick, gently sloping gable parapets, and terra cotta tile-framed windows and doors add unique contrast to the plain rectangular plan. Numerous T- and diamond-shaped terra cotta medallions ornament the upper level.
]]>In 1881, Clarence Goodell and his bride, Parmelia "Millie" Priest, made the treacherous 300-mile journey from Helena to the Judith Basin. The Goodells built a log cabin there and staked a tree claim on the Judith River. By 1889, the enterprising Clarence was farming and ranching over 3,000 acres. That same year local builder Richmond Jellison began construction of the Goodells' new wood frame residence in nearby Philbrook. There Clarence operated two local stagelines equipped with horses bred at the Goodell farm. Dubbed "Goodell's Folly" by the locals, the Queen Anne/Colonial Revival home was a curiosity among the log cabins of the valley. Though its turret was removed after a windstorm and the porches are now enclosed, the residence appears much as it did when Millie applied her creative touches. Even today her peony bushes and hand-painted interior trim delight the eye. In the 1890s, Clarence served as state legislator and county commissioner while Millie was Philbrook's postmistress. One of the area's first women settlers, Millie often traveled miles to assist in childbirth or tend the sick, and the Goodell home was always open to those in need. The residence and still functional pre-1920s outbuildings symbolize the transition from frontier to farming community. Wood Lawn Farm today is the last thriving remnant of the once-vital settlement of Philbrook and a tribute to these resourceful pioneers.
]]>Construction of this women’s residence, dedicated in 1903, attests to Montana’s early commitment to coeducation. Architect A. J. Gibson chose the simple, elegant Second Renaissance Revival style for his third campus building. Deviating from the specifications of the original campus master plan, the building faces the end, rather than the center of the Oval. Room and board could be had for eighteen dollars a month with space for seventy-two students. Renamed Craig Hall in 1911 after first university president Oscar Craig, the building also housed the school’s first two sororities. When a new women’s dormitory opened in 1924, Craig Hall was extensively remodeled for classroom use.
]]>In September 1929, a devastating fire destroyed the three-story building that occupied this corner lot since 1899. The building’s owners, A.C. Wolke and Frank Faust, seized opportunity from the ashes. After building the Roxy Theater, they entered into a long-term contract with Texaco and began construction of this small service station. Designed to harmonize with the neighboring Spanish eclectic style theater, the single-story stucco building has a hipped roof, tiled with faux clay tiles. A prominent porte-cochere, or covered entrance, protected the fueling area (It was enclosed in the early 1980s). The section covered with a shed roof was originally part of the garage. The service station boasted “a well-furnished ladies restroom” and a “wash and grease building…equipped with a hydraulic lift.” It benefitted from the growing number of long-distance travelers passing through Forsyth on U.S. Highway 10, which ran down Main Street until 1950. Even after Highway 10 relocated to Front Street, the service station continued to operate. It remained open and affiliated with Texaco until the early 1980s.
]]>In 1886-1887 the Montana Central Railroad wound its way through the steep Prickly Pear Canyon, an area prized for its superb trout fishing. The town of Wolf Creek, named after an Indian word meaning “Creek That The Wolf Jumped In,” grew from Cartersville, a mile to the east, to serve the railroad. James Carter built a small one-story hotel here in 1887. He soon sold the hotel to a young Englishman, Charles Forman, who replaced it with this three-story frame building circa 1892. Forman attached his new hotel to the original manager’s house, covering its log walls with clapboard siding. Its simple no-frills style was once a common sight across rural Montana. Ten rooms and home-cooked meals offered respite for outdoor enthusiasts as well as stage and railroad travelers. Forman, a butcher by trade, also operated a livery stable and meat company. The small house out back, once filled with ice cut from the Missouri River, kept his larder cool. The hotel operated from 1887 to 1984 under only five owners. It served as a stage stop along the Mullan Trail and routes from Helena to Augusta and Fort Benton. Later it sheltered workers who built Holter Dam in 1910, gas pipeline laborers in the 1930s, and highway crews who divided the town in the 1960s. Although now under the shadow of the interstate, its time-layered walls earlier witnessed high winds and waters, fires, births, and deaths. Restoration as a private home in the 1990s began a new chapter in the long life of this railroad-era landmark.
]]>Melrose was the supply center for a prosperous mining district, especially after the railroad arrived in 1881. Rich mines at Hecla and the smelter at Glendale ordered goods shipped to the Melrose depot, and at the height of the silver boom, a hundred horses arrived in Melrose each day, delivering ore from the smelter in "big-wheeled, ten-ton wagons, drawn by six to eight horses." Among the many teamsters who lived in Melrose was Norwegian immigrant Oscar Wold, who in 1900 advertised his "heavy teaming" service to haul "engines, pumps, boilers, and heavy machinery … to and from [the] station." By 1900, Wold may have received more jobs transporting equipment out of the district than into it; the smelter at Glendale closed in 1900 and by 1904, most mining had ceased. Small-scale operations continued to hire freighters, however, and sometime between 1906 and 1914, Wold constructed this barn to house his horses and, perhaps, as a boarding stable for area ranchers delivering wool and cattle to the railhead. The two-story structure is a well-preserved example of a Mountain Horse Barn—a barn type that originated in the Big Hole and Beaverhead Valleys. Its first story, built of hand-hewed, square-notched logs, reflects traditional Scandinavian building techniques and the work of a highly skilled craftsman. The wood-frame second story provided ample storage for the hay needed to feed horses through the long, cold winters. The large barn, situated two blocks from Main Street, suggests Montanans' continuing dependence on horses, long after the invention of the automobile.
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