Children first attended school in a log cabin at this site in 1882, the year the Northern Pacific Railroad completed its line through the Yellowstone Valley. The railroad brought growing numbers of homesteaders, and in 1904 the community replaced the old schoolhouse with this clapboard school. The two-story building expressed the homesteaders’ commitment to education and their faith that the area would continue to grow. The bell tower—a status symbol for early schools—had moral overtones; bell towers are most commonly found in church architecture. The large front porch added a homey touch. Two teachers taught fifteen children at Howard School in 1904. A 1916 addition expanded the first floor elementary classroom space to serve the children of settlers who arrived after the 1909 Enlarged Homestead Act. Children of Mexican sugar beet workers also attended the school. High school classes, including Latin, geometry, and chemistry, were held upstairs. Also upstairs was the teacherage, or teachers’ apartment. Howard closed the high school in 1932. Improved roads had made it easier for students to attend school in Forsyth while the Great Depression and declining enrollment had made it increasingly difficult to keep the high school open. In 1947, the grade school also closed and consolidated with Forsyth schools. After the formation of the Howard Community Club in the early 1980s, the Forsyth School District returned ownership of the school to the Howard community. The building continues to serve as a place for community gatherings, dances, club meetings, parties, baby showers, and family reunions.
]]>“Remember the Flu epidemic” declared a notice advocating support for Rosebud County Hospital. In 1918 and 1919 influenza killed over 5,000 Montanans. Flu victims in Forsyth received care at the Masonic Hall, temporarily converted into an emergency hospital, but the epidemic underscored the need for a well-equipped hospital close to home. Despite drought and declining crop prices, Rosebud County voters responded to the call, passing a $70,000 bond issue in November 1919 and a second $20,000 bond issue in 1920. Billings architects McIver, Cohagen, and Marshall designed the hospital and then modified the plan when post–World War I inflation placed the original design out of financial reach. The thirty-two-room hospital, constructed by Billings contractor Alfred Lyle, included a lobby, kitchen, patient rooms, and solarium on the main floor; operating theaters and additional patient rooms on the second floor; and laundry and storage areas in the daylight basement. The hipped-roof building, ornamented with a row of stone medallions, exhibits Georgian Revival style features in its symmetrical composition and classical detailing. To manage the hospital and nurses’ training school, the county contracted with the Deaconess organization, a Methodist women’s order that opened its first Montana hospital in 1896 in Great Falls. On April 22, 1921, Rosebud County Deaconess Hospital held an open house and “shower day”; Approximately 1,000 visitors, many bearing donations for the hospital’s food pantry, came to admire the new facility. Three days later, under direction of Deaconess superintendent Lyra Sanborn, the hospital admitted its first patient.
]]>Scandal and intrigue surrounded the construction of Rosebud County Courthouse in 1914. Rosebud County citizens recognized the need for a new courthouse when they passed a $125,000 bond issue in 1911 to fund the building. To design a suitable replacement for the original courthouse—a wood-frame former schoolhouse—county commissioners hired Montana architects Link and Haire. That highly respected firm ultimately designed courthouses for eighteen of Montana’s fifty-six counties. Featuring a colossal portico and an octagonal tower topped by a copper dome, Link and Haire’s design was well received, and Gray’s Construction Company of South Dakota began excavation amid high praise in 1912. Trouble commenced when it became clear that the project was more than $40,000 over budget. In September 1913, the editor of the Forsyth Times-Journal lambasted the county commissioners for the cost overrun and brought suit to restrain them from further expenditure. Apparently worried that his company would not be paid in full, Gray’s foreman refused to turn over the keys to the completed building, despite a court order. The clash had moments of high comedy: at one point, the foreman locked himself inside the building and secreted himself between the ceiling and the roof. Ultimately, a grand jury vindicated the commissioners. Ruling that the building’s design was “imposing and attractive” and its interior “very harmoniously and artistically decorated,” the grand jury declared that the county received “full value for the money expended.” Their judgment still stands. The elegant Neoclassical building remains one of Rosebud County’s architectural jewels.
]]>Five brick houses, all built by early Forsyth merchant Hiram Marcyes, lined this block in 1903. Marcyes arrived in Forsyth in 1882 when it was just a tent town. In 1888, he built the first brick business block in Forsyth; fifteen years later he constructed the grand Commercial Hotel. The owner of a brickyard, Marcyes was responsible for most of Forsyth’s brick residential construction. While the town’s other businessmen built elegant wooden homes on the north side, Marcyes built a brick house for himself (since razed) and several rental properties on the south side. He also had south side homes built for each of his five children, including this one-and-one-half-story Queen Anne style residence, constructed in 1899 for his oldest son Claude. Claude was in college when his father built this house. In 1910, he was living on a nearby ranch. He may have used this residence as a town house until he sold it in 1916. In the 1920s he worked for the Northern Pacific Railroad. He reportedly crossed the picket line during a 1923 strike, after which the Northern Pacific relocated him to Missoula, where he worked as foreman in the tool department. Relatively few turn-of-the-century Forsyth homes display this level of detail and complexity. The residence’s contrasting textures, steeply pitched roof, patterned shingles, and asymmetrical façade all speak to its Queen Anne origins, while its graceful three-part Palladian window adds particular visual interest.
]]>Recognizing that successful communities require infrastructure, Forsyth’s civic leaders proposed construction of a waterworks and sewerage system in 1906. As the town council asserted when it posted the bond issue, “We desire to improve the town…. If the people do not want the city to advance, they may signify their desire by their votes.” Approving $45,000 for a waterworks and $5,000 for sewerage, a majority of voters signaled their support for municipal progress. Construction of the waterworks fell to the Des Moines Bridge Building Co. The project included building a brick pumping station, settling ponds, and a concrete reservoir on the bluffs above town and installing a network of pipes through Forsyth’s developed streets. Forsyth’s frugal city council did not believe in architectural frills; the stark, industrial design of the pumping station reflects its utilitarian purpose. By February 1908, the waterworks was complete; city residents had only “to tap the mains” to “pipe the purest and clearest of water” into their homes and businesses, according to the Forsyth Times. The newspaper’s description of the water’s purity was somewhat exaggerated, as Forsyth’s 1917 typhoid scare and boil order attests. Nevertheless, the new water system did represent a considerable advance for the community, especially in the area of fire suppression. The amount of water needed to fight a fire in the business district determined the design specifications for Forsyth’s waterworks, and the community quickly took advantage of its new capacity, establishing a volunteer fire department within weeks of the waterworks’ completion.
]]>Although heavy rain disrupted the celebrations, it couldn’t dampen the enthusiasm Forsyth residents felt for their new bridge, dedicated on July 4, 1905. Prior to the bridge’s construction, Rosebud County residents had to ford the Yellowstone River in low water or depend on an irregular ferry service; the nearest bridge was forty-five miles downstream at Miles City. Rosebud County commissioned William S. Hewett and Co. to construct this pin-connected Pennsylvania through-truss bridge for $53,200. One of Montana’s most prolific bridge builders, Hewett was responsible for the construction of at least fifteen Montana bridges in and around the Yellowstone Valley between 1897 and 1906. Construction began on December 22, 1904. The crew poured the massive concrete piers before assembling the large steel components, fabricated in the east and shipped to Forsyth by rail. Warming weather and spring flooding sometimes forced the bridge crew to work chest deep in cold water. Nevertheless, construction was completed ahead of schedule. Providing convenient access to the county seat and the Northern Pacific terminal, the bridge saw a marked increase in traffic after construction of the Milwaukee railroad brought homesteaders to north Rosebud County. Originally three spans in length, the southern span crossed the primary river channel; the two northern spans crossed the flood plains. When the bridge was closed in 1958, replaced by a concrete bridge several hundred yards upstream, two of its three spans were salvaged for scrap metal. The southernmost span remains, an example of the tremendous public investment in infrastructure that accompanied the homesteading boom.
]]>When an overheated furnace set fire to the First Presbyterian Church in December 1919, the congregation lost everything but the Prairie style manse built next door in 1910. While church members temporarily held services in the Masonic Hall, news of the fire and pleas for help rebuilding spread through the national Presbyterian press. Among those who responded was an unnamed benefactress from Illinois, a member of Chicago’s distinguished Fourth Presbyterian Church. Because she admired her own church building, the benefactress hired Howard Van Doren Shaw, a Chicago architect associated with Fourth Presbyterian, to design a new church for Forsyth. Shaw’s design, as adapted by Montana architects McIver and Cohagen, echoed on a much smaller scale the basic lines of the prestigious Chicago church. The result: this beautiful single-story yellow brick building with a tall gabled clerestory flanked by three small cross gables. Its simplified Gothic style details include buttressed walls and a prominent pointed-arch entranceway. Although church trustees originally estimated reconstruction would cost $30,000 to $35,000, Shaw’s design was more ambitious than they expected, and more than the small congregation, hit hard by the declining homesteading economy, could afford—even with substantial national support. Compromises were made; for example, many of the church’s rectangular windows lie beneath window arches originally intended to frame dramatic stained glass, and some of the interior detailing remained uncompleted until the 1970s. In 1950, Forsyth’s Presbyterians and Methodists joined together to form the Federated Church; the united congregation continues to meet in this downtown landmark.
]]>On May 8, 1882, the first train rumbled through Forsyth, and the growing town soon became home to many Northern Pacific Railway workers. Among them were locomotive engineers, whose skills were in high demand, particularly in the West during the heady days of railroad expansion. The Forsyth engineers operated their steam-powered locomotives to the crew change point of Billings (and later Laurel). By September 1882, enough engineers had moved to Forsyth to form Division 195 of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers (BLE), the United States’ first railroad union. Founded in Detroit in 1863, the BLE generally avoided strikes in favor of negotiations; it became a pioneer in collective bargaining and a strong lobby for railroad safety. BLE Division 195 built this meeting hall in 1886 with labor and funds donated by its members. Constructed of logs, the hall was later sided and eventually stuccoed. The building contains a small vestibule, a closet, and a single meeting room that still boasts its original wood floor, baseboards, and chair rails. From 1886 to 1899, the engineers leased the land on which the hall stands from the Northern Pacific Railway; in 1899 they purchased the lot when the railroad sold the land to a townsite company, creating Forsyth’s NP Addition. Many organizations used the BLE Hall for meetings, dances, and family gatherings, and one early Forsyth congregation worshipped here until it could build its own church. One of the best surviving examples of Forsyth’s early architecture, it is still occasionally used by the BLE.
]]>The Northern Pacific Railroad was the lifeblood of many small Montana towns like Forsyth, which was founded in 1882 to serve as an operations base for rail crews. Since unmarried men filled most railroad positions, towns like Forsyth had need of inexpensive, basic housing facilities. Originally the railroad provided housing for its Forsyth workers, but when the “section house” burned in 1902, the railroad did not replace it. Gustaf “Gus” Swanland built this rooming house in 1912 to fill a need for housing. He lived here himself along with his single tenants, many of whom were Northern Pacific employees. Although advertised as the Swanland Hotel, the building was commonly known as the “Blue Front” because of its bright blue paint. Boarding houses were usually residential in appearance but Swanland’s narrow lot and location in the business district dictated a more commercial look. A 1905 city ordinance required fire-resistant brick construction, and, like its neighbors, the vernacular Italianate style façade was enhanced with a layer of light-colored brick veneer. A bracketed wooden cornice and pediment soften the rather austere, utilitarian image. The Blue Front’s interior, which survives almost intact, provides a fascinating glimpse into turn-of-the-twentieth-century accommodations. Both stories reflect typical boardinghouse living arrangements with small, wall-papered rooms opening onto a central hallway. The Spartan sleeping room had little space, not even closets, but the Blue Front’s common kitchen, parlor, and dining room offered a more homelike atmosphere.
]]>Twenty-year-old Herman K. Anderson arrived in the United States in the late 1880s. One of over 1.5 million Swedes who left their homeland between 1850 and 1930, he quickly found work in North Dakota and eastern Montana on the Northern Pacific Railroad. Lonely, he corresponded with an old sweetheart, Hannah Svenson, and convinced her to join him in America. She traveled first to New York, where she worked at a children’s home to earn money before moving west. The couple married in 1895 in Glendive, Montana. In 1902, the Andersons returned to Sweden to visit family and investigate buying a farm. Some 13 percent of Swedish immigrants to the United States returned home, but the Andersons soon decided that they preferred life in the United States. Herman once again found work with the Northern Pacific, and the family lived briefly in Howard, Montana, before moving to Forsyth in late 1903. In 1908, longing for their own home, the Andersons hired contractor J. W. Waddell to build them an eleven-room house. It was completed just in time for the birth of the family’s fifth, and last, child. The comfortable, two-story, clapboard residence with a large wraparound porch was within easy walking distance of the railroad shop where Herman worked until his retirement in 1935. The home remained in the family until 1954. A subsequent owner converted it into five small apartments, but the building’s exterior looks much as it did when Swedish, rather than English, resounded in its halls.
]]>Dr. Arthur C. Wilson moved to Forsyth after graduating medical school in 1891. He worked as a surgeon for the Northern Pacific Railroad, as a medical examiner for insurance companies, and as the county health officer. Forsyth’s first resident physician, he also maintained an active general practice and is said to have covered “the territory between Miles City and Musselshell and to the Wyoming line.” He and his wife Ida had this home built in 1903 either replacing or substantially enlarging the small wooden home that occupied this lot by 1897. The two-and-one-half-story residence on a double corner lot reflected the prominence of its owners, who lived here until Dr. Wilson’s death in 1929. Popular Queen Anne elements ornament the home: a wraparound porch, two-story octagonal bay, and decorative leaded glass. Although it looks like an addition, the one-story room behind the house was part of the original design. Placing the kitchen under separate roof minimized fire risk. Bucket brigades could more easily reach a one-story roof, perhaps saving the main house in case of a kitchen fire.
]]>Osteopaths Norman Vredenburgh and Claude Sawtelle built this Craftsman style bungalow in 1915 as a “sanitarium,” a small hospital and nursing home. From its inviting inset front porch to its prominent hipped dormers, the building looked more like a house than a hospital. However, according to its newspaper advertisements, the sanitarium served as a center for “Osteopathy, Hydrotherapy, Electrotherapy, Violet Rays, Electric Light Sweat Baths, and the famous Ozon Treatment.” In particular, the partners specialized in “chronic and maternity cases, eye, ear, nose, and throat work” and optometry. Dr. Vredenburgh lived next door while Dr. Sawtelle resided at the hospital. Many such private hospitals opened in towns across Montana before resources were available to construct larger facilities. In this case, the venture was short-lived. The sanitarium closed before the 1918 flu epidemic hit Forsyth; flu victims received treatment at a makeshift emergency hospital in the Masonic Lodge. Forsyth finally gained a permanent hospital when Rosebud County contracted with the Deaconess organization to open a thirty-two-bed facility in 1922.
]]>Small touches add elegance to this one-and-one-half-story Colonial Revival residence and matching garage. Particularly noteworthy are its overall symmetry, prominent eave returns, shingled gabled ends, and classical pillars supporting the hipped roof of the front porch. The home’s relative lack of adornment owes much to the early twentieth century’s emphasis on simplicity and clean lines. Its longest-term residents were Andrew and Ellen Thurston and their four daughters. Andrew managed the Yellowstone Elevator Company before becoming a car salesman while Ellen was locally known for her hospitality. The popular Forsyth couple may have built the home after purchasing the lot from prominent businessman and banker Emmett Meyerhoff in 1919. They owned the residence until 1937. The wooden home with clapboard siding has changed little since it was first built. Except for the modern porch screens, storm windows, and metal roof, the exterior looks much as it did in 1920. The interior still boasts hardwood floors, wood trim, crown molding, and even some of the original light fixtures.
]]>Civil engineer Charles Taber helped survey the original Northern Pacific line through Forsyth in 1881. He must have liked what he saw because he soon returned to Forsyth, becoming the town’s first mayor after it incorporated in 1904. Taber purchased this two-story Queen Anne style home in 1906, living here with his family into the 1930s. The cross-gable residence, built circa 1892, features bay windows, turned porch supports, carved porch brackets, and a small spindlework frieze. Railroads brought such precut architectural elements to towns along their tracks, allowing builders to personalize homes for their clients. The interior boasts a narrow, sharply curved wooden staircase that, according to local legend, came from a steamboat that wrecked on the Yellowstone River. Very few boats traveled the Yellowstone after the Northern Pacific completed its railroad line in 1883, but the staircase does, in fact, look like those found in nineteenth-century steamboats. The 1870s saw at least two steamboat wrecks on the Yellowstone, and thrifty Montanans always salvaged what they could from the wreckage, from freight and machinery to building materials.
]]>Northern Pacific Railroad engineer Thomas Sorenson and his wife Hannah built this one-and-one-half-story residence circa 1910. That year the Norwegian immigrant couple lived here with their five children and two boarders, both of whom also worked for the railroad. The large gambrel roof dormer distinguishes this home from its neighbors. That distinctive shape—often associated with barns—characterizes Dutch Colonial Revival architecture. However, other elements—including the first floor octagonal bay, pedimented dormer, inset porch, and asymmetrical massing—reflect a number of different styles. The stylistic mix suggests that the design came from a pattern book, a book of mass-produced architectural plans. Such plans sometimes came with precut lumber for easy assembly on site; other times, the popular plans simply provided local builders with specifications for complex structures that may otherwise have been beyond their skill. In either case, pattern books expanded housing options for families like the Sorensons who wanted more than what local builders could easily offer, but who could not afford to hire an architect to design a home exclusively for them.
]]>“May You Prosper Well in Your New Theatre with Your Steadfast Faith in Forsyth,” read one of the many ads that filled the August 28, 1930, Forsyth Times. Car and clothing merchants joined building contractors and suppliers in congratulating Anthony Wolke and Frank Faust on the construction of their new theatre. Movies had played in Forsyth since the turn of the century, first in the Commercial Hotel, then in a converted Main Street storefront. The Roxy, however, was the first building in Forsyth constructed specifically as a theatre; it was also one of the few buildings constructed in Forsyth during the Great Depression. Equipped with RCA sound-producing equipment, the new theatre boasted red velour curtains, spring cushion seats, Spanish lanterns in the foyer, and six small Spanish balconies in the auditorium itself. The Spanish décor carried to the exterior, where stucco walls and exotic-looking Spanish roof tiles tempted passersby to escape the sometimes grim reality of the Depression. Entrance into the realm of romance and entertainment cost only fifty cents (sixty cents for balcony seats).
]]>“Forsyth No Longer a String Town—Side Streets Are Being Utilized” proclaimed a 1910 Forsyth Times article lauding the development of Ninth Avenue. Side streets lined with businesses marked a railroad town’s coming-of-age, as did construction of brick buildings featuring whatever architectural flourishes their owners could afford. Rusticated quoins and a small brick cornice ornament the façade of this relatively simple one-story building constructed between 1907 and 1910. In 1910, a large wooden warehouse stood in back; the Richardson Mercantile used both the warehouse and this brick storefront for its farm implement division. In 1915, the law firm of Loud, Collins, Brown, Campbell and Wood purchased the building. The firm, which also operated in Billings and Miles City, completely remodeled the structure to make it “as modern as possible.” Large plate glass windows provided ample light for the stenographic department, while skylights provided light and ventilation for the private offices of the firm’s principals. Later remodels changed the building further, but its function remained constant: law firms continued to occupy this space until 1988.
]]>Cast concrete block was an exciting new technology in the 1900s. While critics labeled it “cheap and vulgar,” builders and homeowners embraced it as a “substantial and beautiful substitute for stone.” Durable, affordable, and simple to manufacture, the material—virtually unheard of in 1900—was widely used by 1906, when Forsyth mason Carson Conn began producing concrete blocks in a variety of finishes. Nationally, cast concrete brought architectural ornamentation within financial reach of the masses. In Forsyth, however, this elegant “free classic” Queen Anne house is one of the few to feature the decorative substitute. In typical Queen Anne style, the 1908 home boasts a variety of surface shapes and textures, while its classical front porch columns and hipped roof suggest a Colonial Revival influence. E. A. and Lillian Richardson, for whom the house was built, moved to Forsyth from Crow Agency in 1907 to take advantage of the booming homestead economy. Richardson first opened his Forsyth store in 1903; under his watchful eye, it grew into the city’s largest department store.
]]>Cattleman Lafayette H. Parker and his wife, Lida, purchased a small home on this lot in 1910. Lafayette died two years later of tuberculosis, but Lida continued to live here, and in 1917, she obtained a mortgage to replace her home with a two-story clapboard residence with a full basement, which she opened as a boarding house. Both Forsyth newspapers commented on the new construction. The Democrat called the building “among the best and most expensive residences being constructed in the city this year,” while the Times-Journal noted that “the house will be thoroughly modern in every respect” with steam heat and “hot and cold running water.” For the lodgers’ convenience the upstairs bathroom did not have a washstand; instead each bedroom had its own sink. In 1920 Parker lived here with her divorced daughter and two-year-old granddaughter, three single male lodgers (an engineer, railroad fireman, and bookkeeper), and a married couple and their ten-month-old baby. She sold the building in 1928, but it continued to serve as a boarding house until 1966, after which it became a private residence.
]]>A truncated hipped roof reflects this circa 1895 home’s modest beginnings. Carpenters used shorter, less expensive pieces of lumber for hipped roofs than for triangular-shaped gable roofs. Owners added a full-length front porch (since removed) and a rear addition before 1903. That year Ida Northway purchased the residence, where she lived with her husband Joseph and their son Glen. Women like Ida often owned their family homes because in some circumstances their property could be protected from their husbands’ creditors. Montana’s boom-and-bust economy made any such protection welcome. An open range cowboy in the 1880s, Ida’s husband Joseph tried several businesses before his election as Rosebud County sheriff in 1902. He later owned a successful meat market at Tenth and Main, an easy walk from here. Ida, for her part, was a renowned homemaker. “Home was the dearest place of all to her,” according to her 1927 obituary. “…As a consequence, she kept it so that not only her own family delighted to be there, but her many friends to drop in for a little time of its fellowship.”
]]>Emmett and Anna Meyerhoff arrived in Forsyth in 1902 and quickly became prominent in Forsyth society. The assistant cashier of the newly organized Forsyth State Bank (later First National Bank), Meyerhoff was bank president by 1913. Anna was active in the Forsyth Woman’s Club, whose meetings she sometimes hosted here, while Emmett was a committed Mason and a founding member of the Chamber of Commerce. He also served a term as mayor. The Meyerhoffs purchased this plot in 1907, and sometime before 1910 constructed an elegant, hipped-roof bungalow. The home boasts an interesting combination of decorative features including Craftsman style exposed rafter tails and multi-paned windows. After the agricultural depression forced the closure of all of Forsyth’s banks in 1923, the Meyerhoffs moved to Los Angeles, where Emmett found work as an accountant. Forsyth businessman Walter Dean purchased the home in 1945 for his son, Walter, and daughter-in-law, Esther. In the early 1960s, during the Cold War, the Deans installed a bomb shelter in the basement. Although Walter died in 1998, Esther still lived here in 2004.
]]>Carpenter Gustav Hoff purchased this lot in 1900, and sometime before 1920 he built this one-story, hipped roof house, likely as an investment. Robert “Shorty” Meredith and his wife Mary bought the residence in 1920 for $2,500. The couple had moved to Forsyth four years earlier; shortly thereafter, Shorty found work at Sickler’s Garage as a mechanic. He is credited with assembling the first twenty-five Ford cars to enter Rosebud County. As was typical for the time, the Merediths paid half the cost of the house up front. Large down payments and five-year mortgages were standard before 1934. That year, the government created the Federal Housing Administration, a New Deal agency that tried to stimulate the economy by aiding potential homebuyers. In 1931, the Merediths hired two men to hand dig a basement and install a rock foundation for $500. Sometime after 1941, they enclosed the front porch to provide much needed room for their large family. Mary raised eight children before her death in 1967. Shorty lived here into the 1980s.
]]>The deep eaves and flared rooflines of this two-story home were meant to evoke the Far East, while its octagonal tower, ornamental brackets, decorative beveled glass, and corbelled chimneys reveal the attention to detail that accompanied the home’s construction. Forsyth contractor Louis Wahl built the elegant residence for rancher and businessman Joshua McCuistion and his wife, Grace, in 1914. Grace, who had traveled to Asia, had a great appreciation for eastern architecture and was reportedly intimately involved with the home’s design and construction. She is said to have checked every load of lumber delivered to the site, sending back any boards that didn’t meet her specifications. Described by the Forsyth Times as “one of the most costly in the city,” the residence served as the McCuistion’s “town house.” In 1928 they sold it to Whit and Elsie Carolan. The home’s location was particularly convenient for Whit, a lawyer who served as county attorney and whose office was at the county courthouse. Elsie, who taught piano to generations of Forsyth children, lived here until 1978.
]]>When the Milwaukee road arrived in 1907, Forsyth boomed, and carpenter Maurice S. Lord decided to open his own business. “It won’t cost you anything to talk to me,” he advertised, “and if I can’t suit you as to price and quality, then give the job to the other fellow and we will still be friends.” A few years earlier, he and his wife Mary built this two-story transitional Queen Anne/Colonial Revival home. Lord likely constructed the residence himself. Its unusual T-shaped floor plan was a good advertisement for his skills as a homebuilder, especially since the house doubled as his office. Nevertheless, evidence suggests that business was slower than he hoped. Plumbers who added a bathroom in 1909 sued the Lords for payment, and three years later Richardson Mercantile temporarily attached a lien to the property. The Lords sold the home in 1912 and left Forsyth to try their hand at farming. By 1914, however, the family had moved to Columbus, where Maurice once again worked as a carpenter.
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