Dillon’s first railroad hotel, the Hotel Metlen, opened to much fanfare in 1898. However, by 1917 rapidly changing expectations of comfort and style spurred successful sheep rancher Harry Andrus to build a new, $150,000 hotel in the heart of Dillon’s business district. Andrus hired Seattle architect Jesse Warren to design a thoroughly modern and elegant Renaissance Revival style building. In his correspondence to Warren, Andrus said, “I made my money in Beaverhead County and I want to build a hotel in Dillon; the best is none too good for Beaverhead County people.” He spared no expense. The lobby, which was large enough to host dances and other community celebrations, boasted a red marble staircase with a decorative wood balustrade, stained glass windows, faux plaster classical columns, and an elevator. The ground floor included a restaurant, bar, bank, and billiard parlor. The second floor held thirty rooms and the Andrus family’s spacious suite. Most of the rooms featured carpets and private bathrooms, while every room had a telephone. The third-floor rooms hosted long-term tenants and salesman’s showrooms. When the hotel opened in February 1918, the Dillon Tribune wrote that Andrus gave “to Dillon, her people and her visitors one of the finest, most modern and best-equipped hotels in the entire northwest.” Andrus managed the hotel until his death in 1941. It proved far more than just a place for visitors to stay; it became a community institution where businesses and civic organizations held important meetings, banquets, charity sales, and other social functions.
]]>The four buildings that make up this small historic district show the growth of Dillon’s city government. Buildings include ones constructed in the Progressive Era, the New Deal, and the 1960s, when the city built a shelter for one of its water wells. The 1914 city hall displays the Progressive Era’s optimism, practicality, and belief in government as a force for good. The building housed a variety of municipal functions, including the fire and police departments, water commission, and city clerk’s office; large openings onto East Center Street mark the former fire-engine bays. The design also included a city council meeting room, living quarters for firefighters, a municipal jail, and a large public auditorium. The latter provided space for lectures, dances, fraternal meetings, boxing and wrestling matches, and theatrical productions. Bozeman architect Fred F. Willson designed the dignified Romanesque Revival style building with decorative brickwork patterns, projecting arched hood molds, and fanlight windows. The effect was a building decorative enough to instill public pride and modest enough to indicate fiscal responsibility. As Dillon grew, the city expanded on the lots behind the main building. In 1936-37, using funds from the Works Progress Administration, a New Deal federal jobs program, a shop was constructed behind city hall. It served as a police garage, shop, and storage, and included space to house the jail’s female prisoners. When the city needed more space, particularly for fire equipment, this shop was added onto, and another garage/shop was built and added onto in 1945 and again in 1975.
]]>The Martin Barrett House, built in 1912, was the in-town retirement home of prominent pioneer rancher, politician and philanthropist Martin Barrett and his wife Alice. One of the finest examples of early-twentieth-century architecture in Dillon, the Barrett House combines the grace and symmetry of the Colonial Revival style with the horizontal rooflines of the Prairie style. Born in Ireland, Martin Barrett arrived in Montana Territory in 1863, wisely choosing to make his fortune in the goldfields by raising stock at Horse Prairie. By 1871, he ran 2,000 head of shorthorn cattle on 4,500 acres. He was elected to two terms in the territorial legislature and was the Beaverhead County Stock Commissioner for six years in the early 1900s. He served on the Dillon School Board, but was defeated by his wife, who then served as a board member for the next twenty-two years. Martin Barrett also was a founding member and vice president of the Dillon State Bank. In 1921, he donated $100,000 towards the construction of a new hospital in Dillon, named for him as its major benefactor.
]]>As a ranching and agricultural center and major railroad stop between Butte and the Idaho line, Dillon’s future looked very bright in the late 1890s. The recent invention of the gold dredge and resurgence of gold mining brought added prosperity to the county. With optimistic vigor in 1897, pioneer politician and businessman Joseph Metlen expressed his support of the community and belief in Dillon’s potential with the construction of a $30,000 sixty-room hotel. Grand in scale and rich in detail, Metlen spared no expense on the three-story Second Empire style building. White quarry-faced sandstone, white brick, a tin-covered mansard roof, and interior finishing of Michigan and Oregon pine reveal the best quality materials. The hotel boasted all the most modern conveniences: call bells in every room, electricity, hot and cold water, and a steam heating system “absolutely free from hammering.” Over 200 distinguished guests attended the formal opening on February 11, 1898, including Governor R. B. Smith and Chief Justice Pemberton. One of Dillon’s three surviving landmarks of the early community, the Metlen Hotel remains an important economic and social fixture, providing similar services for over ninety years.
]]>As early as 1888, the Reverend and Mrs. Sidney Hooker of the Episcopal Church launched a book club, laying the foundation for this impressive public library. A town meeting in 1890 established a library association, and soon contributions of books, time, and money for the “free library” yielded a modest collection. The books were housed in a variety of settings: a Masonic Lodge room, a grocery store, a bank, and finally, in 1894, the parish house of the Episcopal Church. In 1896, the mayor appointed the first library trustees. Among them was Mrs. Hooker, the grandniece of author Harriet Beecher Stowe, who served as chief librarian. By 1901, the library had enlarged to 2,438 volumes and outgrown its parish home. Trustee secretary Reverend Henry Cope applied to the Andrew Carnegie Endowment Fund. A sum of $7,500 toward the $8,600 cost of a new building was granted. Distinguished Helena architect C. S. Haire designed the Romanesque Revival structure, completed in 1902. A steep gable, octagonal tower, semicircular arches, and carved faces lend a medieval quality to this dignified library built with such civic pride. One of seventeen Montana libraries constructed with Carnegie funds, the Dillon City Library is a tribute to the townspeople who supported its creation and to those who continue to nurture it.
]]>The Union Pacific Railroad entered Montana Territory via the Utah and Northern narrow gauge branch line in 1880. The newly platted town of Dillon, named for Utah and Northern president Sidney Dillon, stood ready as a stopping point between Utah and the mining town of Butte. By 1907, Dillon’s Oregon Short Line Depot was handling $1,000 a day in passenger and freight traffic. The old depot building, dismantled elsewhere and moved to Dillon in sections in 1880, was inconveniently located, “…dingy, dirty and absolutely unfit….” Dillon businessmen feared its wretched condition might encourage passengers to choose an alternate route. Mayor B. F. White secured the promise of a new depot from Union Pacific officials, thereby assuring the survival of this railroad-dependent town. On New Year’s night, 1908, townspeople christened their new depot, declaring it “…a credit to a town ten times the size of Dillon.” The Arts and Crafts style brick depot features quoining and banding of cast concrete, multi-paned windows, and wide eaves supported by wooden brackets. Its central presence enhances the architectural character of the community. Rail traffic dwindled in the 1970s and in 1989, the Union Pacific acknowledged the end of an era, transferring its depot keys to Beaverhead County Museum officials. The elegant depot, a splendid example of period railroad architecture, symbolizes Dillon’s roots.
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