A stormy crossing from Germany to Baltimore, a three-day quarantine, and a long train trip west finally brought John Spannring, his wife Mary, and their four children to Montana in 1910. A fifth child was born a month after the family’s arrival in Livingston. John homesteaded south of Reed Point, breaking sod with a shovel, hoe, and hand rake. By 1916, the family had acquired a tractor, a four bottom plow, a grain separator, and a deed for the land. The Spannrings sold their first homestead and purchased the core 1,276 acres of this farm in 1917. In 1920, John and his sons built the stone and frame Bungalow style home, a symbol of the family’s hard-earned success. John died in 1924 and extended drought precipitated near loss of the property. In 1926, sons Joseph and Walter assumed operation of the farm, building the stone and frame dairy barn. Wheat was the main crop and Spannrings threshed their own as well as their neighbors’. Aided by brother Simon, a Northern Pacific employee, additional acreage was purchased during the depressed 1930s. By 1939, all the Spannring children had married except Joseph, under whose supervision the farm continued to prosper. The final addition to the Spannring holdings came in 1943, when friend and neighbor Edward O’Dowd conveyed his adjoining homestead to Joseph, bringing the total acreage to 2,286. Joseph married in 1948 but died the following year and the homestead abruptly ceased family operation. Like other immigrant families who settled in this area, the Spannrings battled drought, crop failure, grasshoppers, and hard times. Unlike many, however, they triumphed. It is no small tribute that their hard-won acreage remains intact. In 1988, Nancy and Edward Clement of Salisbury, N.C., purchased and meticulously rehabilitated this historic property.
]]>The settlement of Big Timber coincided with the advent of the Northern Pacific Railroad, which steamed into the Yellowstone Valley in 1882, spurring settlement along the line. In 1884, Rev. Alfred Brown, an Episcopal minister from Livingston, held the town’s first Protestant church services in the local schoolhouse. The Rev. J. F. Pritchard of Livingston soon began conducting regular services and the Congregational church hospitably shared its facilities. With the encouragement of Rev. Pritchard in 1892, the Episcopal women’s guild began plans to build St. Paul’s Episcopal Church. The name was changed in 1895 to St. Mark’s and a subscription paper circulated, raising $900. St. Mark’s cornerstone was laid in the fall of 1895. Rev. Pritchard and the Rt. Rev. Dr. Leigh R. Brewer, Missionary Bishop of the Episcopal District of Montana, Idaho and Utah, conducted the first services in February of 1896. St. John’s Episcopal Church in Butte and individuals in Chicago and Waterton, New York, donated many of the interior furnishings for the $2,215 building. By 1899, the diligent fund-raising efforts of the women’s guild had cleared the debt. The beautiful Gothic Revival style stone building, designed by F. S. Hornbeck and constructed by skilled craftsmen under local builder O. M. Lanphear, reflects the English roots of the Episcopal church. Masterfully cut and fitted native limestone, the characteristic vertical emphasis of the Gothic style and exquisite stained glass make this truly an architectural gem. Historically significant as the town’s oldest standing church, St. Mark’s remains a handsome memorial to the dedicated members of its founding congregation.
]]>When the Northern Pacific Railroad established a depot in Big Timber in 1883, the small frontier town fast became a business and shipping center, drawing trade from great distances. Construction of this fine hotel in 1890 well illustrates the impact of the railroad’s westward expansion. Local citizens were so confident in the town’s future that sheep rancher Jacob Halverson financed its $20,000 construction costs. The Grand was one of the early masonry buildings that replaced less permanent frame structures and sod-roofed log cabins along the main commercial street. The lovely façade with its extensive brick patterning and sandstone window surrounds is a tribute to the hotel’s unknown architect and local craftsmen. The Grand offered guests a sixty-seat dining room and forty sleeping apartments. An overnight stay cost about two dollars, and “no house in the state furnished better returns for the money.” But for sheep ranchers, miners, and residents, the Grand quickly became an essential place to socialize and conduct business. In 1908, on Friday the 13th of May, a spectacular fire destroyed nearly all the businesses along McLeod Street. Remarkably, the Grand Hotel remained intact. This enduring landmark, more than just a hotel to the community, continues to be a place to gather, hear news, and do business.
]]>As civic reforms swept the nation at the dawn of the twentieth century, Big Timber’s Citizens’ Progressive Party followed national enthusiasm by electing Progressive officials when the city incorporated in 1902. Then on March 13, 1908, a spark from a passing locomotive set fire to the Northern Pacific stockyards. High winds carried flaming embers, starting fires in several places at once. The Livingston fire department arrived by special train to save the community from annihilation, but one-half of Big Timber’s commercial houses and one-third of its homes went up in flames. In the aftermath of this calamity, the civic-minded city council approved construction of a combination town hall and fire hall. Frank Larson submitted a low bid of $4,805 using his own plans and specifications. Constructed in 1909, Larson’s thoughtfully designed building adapts the Western Commercial style of architecture to a civic application. The flag flying atop the belfry, and the fire bell within, signified the building’s official function. An undivided first floor provided space for the fire trucks and equipment, while a three-room second floor housed the council chamber, the “fire laddies,” and a watchman. The hall served Big Timber until 1966. Under the leadership of Mayor John F. Ashbury 1902-1913, the Citizens’ Progressive Party effected numerous civic improvements. Among them is this town hall, a stellar example of Montana’s Progressive era and a worthy example of the town’s role in the national municipal reform movement.
]]>An alternative to saloons and pool halls, the Big Timber Library stayed open evenings in 1914, with the hope of “not only … educating [people] … in the right way, but keeping them from falling by the wayside, as so many do in these western towns.” Big Timber’s first library, a “branch” of the Parmley Billings Library, was a shelf of books in a local store in 1901. By 1911, the library, then housed in the Town Hall, had grown to 1,300 volumes, and the community approached industrialist and library patron Andrew Carnegie for funding for a new building. Carnegie provided $7,500, stipulating, as he did with all his library grants, that Big Timber provide a building site and commit tax funds to support library services. Like many other Carnegie libraries, this “temple of learning,” designed by the architectural firm of Link and Haire and built in 1914, embraces Classical Revival elements made popular for civic buildings by the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago. One of 17 Carnegie libraries in Montana, its floor plan matches one Carnegie’s assistant recommended for small libraries. Decorated with Tuscan columns and a pedimented entry, the symmetrical one-story building has a hipped roof, large windows, a daylight basement (which houses a meeting room) and a flight of stairs leading to the main floor (which contains reading rooms and open stacks). It is a fine example of “Carnegie Classic” design, personalized by a façade of river rock at the basement level.
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