When railroads replaced steamboats, Fort Benton’s importance as a trade center declined. In response, Fort Benton businessmen formed the Benton Bridge Company to construct a bridge across the Missouri River to capture the trade of the rapidly developing Judith Basin. This first steel bridge across the Missouri River in Montana made it possible for ranchers and farmers to ship their livestock and grain from the Fort Benton railhead. It thus preserved Fort Benton’s significance to regional trade. Since the Missouri was classified as a navigable waterway, the newly formed Benton Bridge Company needed federal permission to build. Congress approved the project after requiring that one span be built on a pivot so the bridge could open to let boats through. In 1888, the firm of Haney and Ryan began sinking the bridge’s piers, which they protected with ice breaks built of heavy timbers. The work was dangerous; two men died during construction. The Milwaukee Bridge and Iron Works Company built the steel and iron superstructure. On completion, the newspaper declared the 825-foot, six-span, pin-connected, through-truss bridge “as strong and durable as it is handsome.” It cost pedestrians 5 cents and a horse and buggy 25 cents to cross. Each head of cattle cost 12.5 cents, with special rates for large droves. The county purchased the structure in 1892. After June 1908 floods washed out the swing span, the Army Corps of Engineers gave permission to replace it with a permanent pin-connected, steel Parker through truss span. Vehicles continued to cross the Missouri over “the Great Iron Bridge” until 1962.
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Fort Benton’s first school opened in 1868, over twenty years before statehood. As Montana’s population grew, so did its commitment to education, fueled by the belief that a successful democracy demands an educated populace. Upon statehood (1889), the Enabling Act attempted to set aside sections 16 and 36 in each township to financially support education. Because some of these sections (or portions thereof) were already claimed, “in lieu” selections were offered, including the tract on which the Eagle Butte School is located. Chouteau County established the Eagle Butte School District in 1912. That year, approximately twenty-seven children attended school for one to two months in abandoned homestead shacks. School construction began in 1914. A storm demolished the partially completed building, but this clapboard-sided school with attached teacherage (living quarters for the teacher) was ready for students in August 1915. The schoolhouse followed best practices for small school design. Near the entry were two cloakrooms (one for boys and one for girls). A single band of windows left two large unbroken walls for blackboards while avoiding “cross lighting,” which experts believed harmed pupils’ eyes. Craftsman style detailing added a touch of sophistication and expressed the district’s ambitions. Nevertheless, in its early years, the school suffered high teacher turnover as isolation and low pay took their toll. After 1918, drought and agricultural depression led to declining enrollments. The school remained open by merging with South Eagle Butte School in 1924. Prosperity returned after World War II, and the school operated until 1964, when Geraldine Elementary annexed the Eagle Butte district.
]]>St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Fort Benton’s oldest church, is the oldest Episcopal Church in Montana. In continuous service since August 11, 1881, it appears today almost as it did upon opening. Architecturally, this Gothic style building is a fine example of the small community churches being built in Montana at that time. But its story illustrates the difficulties of civilization’s arrival on the raw frontier. After Bishop D. S. Tuttle established a congregation here in 1879, its members held services in the schoolhouse, a saloon, and finally in the courthouse while raising money to build a church. The building fund’s first substantial contribution even came from the East, from the Rev. Joseph Coit, headmaster of St. Paul’s School in Concord, New Hampshire. Thus the church was named St. Paul’s. Here worshipped notable Montana pioneers including W. G. Conrad, C. E. Conrad, Joseph A. Baker, and Paris Gibson. Note the leaded stained glass lancet windows, all placed as memorials and each a work of art.
]]>The Fort Benton Engine House, built in 1883, and the Grand Union Hotel are two of only a few structures remaining to remind us of the rapid expansion here during the flourishing steamboat days. When Fort Benton incorporated in 1883, a volunteer fire department was organized and a contract let for $1,710 to build this engine house. By fall, the building was complete and thirty-five men organized into three companies of firemen were ready to drill—but the firefighting equipment wintered at Cow Island because the steamboat bringing it up the Missouri met low water at season’s end (not an uncommon situation). The gear was brought on to Fort Benton by ox wagon the following spring. This building served as City Hall for more than seventy-five years, until 1966, and from 1899 it housed the city jail. Its use today as a public meeting hall for service organizations recalls the past use as a center for social activities as well as for waiting firefighters.
]]>This building opened in 1882 during Fort Benton’s “glory days” as Montana’s largest hardware store. T. C. Power and Hans Wackerlin operated the business. Wackerlin, a tinsmith, had come to Fort Benton in 1867 aboard the steam boat Richmond, which had been commandeered from Missouri to Montana by Quantrill’s Raiders. Affiliation with I. G. Baker in 1888 allowed Wackerlin to expand his inventory, adding shelf and builder’s hardware, queensware, glassware, and house furnishings. Wackerlin sold out to T. C. Power in 1895.
]]>Originally built to house the Stockmen’s National Bank, this solid structure represents typical pre-1900s commercial architecture. Its 1890 construction is significant as one of the few buildings erected after Fort Benton’s heyday and before homesteaders flocked to Montana in the twentieth century. Arched windows and front corner quoins add visual interest to this historic institution, which later accommodated the Chouteau County Bank and First Bank System. The ornate, one-story extension at the rear was added in 1918.
]]>T. C. Power and Bro. was founded in 1868 at approximately this location. Initially housed in a wooden building, the store was moved in 1879 to a large brick structure across the street. When the firm expanded, a hardware store was built next door and the dry goods-saddlery building constructed in 1881. The business went bankrupt in 1934. In later years Palmer Hardware and Morrison’s Hardware occupied the building.
]]>In 1867, merchant T. C. Power, destined to become one of the state’s wealthiest and most influential men, brought his first wagonload of goods to Fort Benton, where he set up shop in a borrowed tent. Still in business in 1916, Power constructed a new grocery and department store to cater to “sodbusters” during the homestead boom. Architect George H. Carsley, who was Power’s neighbor in Helena, designed the stylish, two-story brick building. A flat roof, decorative brackets, and series of second-story windows are architecturally representative of the period.
]]>In 1864, Mills and Douglas operated a restaurant and hotel on this corner. Mills and Robert S. Culbertson went into partnership in 1877, opening a new establishment called the Centennial Hotel in celebration of the United States' 100th birthday. Culbertson, nephew of Alexander Culbertson who was the founder of Fort Benton, became full owner in 1881. In 1882, the hotel was rebuilt of brick and renamed the Pacific Hotel; later it was also known as the Culbertson House. Robert and his wife Lydia operated the hotel until her death in 1912. It was operated by one of their nine children, Esther Casey, until 1941, then sold by the family in 1946.
]]>Prominent Montana merchant and cattleman John T. Murphy, who also ran a major freighting outfit between Fort Benton and the mining camps, went into partnership with Samuel Neel to build this commercial building in 1880 at a cost of $15,000. The impressive one-story brick building on the riverfront served as mercantile store and warehouse. Distinctive corbelling, arched doorways, and tall pillared chimneys enhanced its original appearance. The one remaining chimney still retains the intricate design.
]]>After the turn of the twentieth century homesteaders poured into Montana, and by 1910 the area’s land office at Great Falls processed between a thousand and fifteen hundred homestead filings per month. The peaceful little river town of Fort Benton boomed again. Increased population meant more business, and longtime saloon proprietor John H. McGraw took advantage of the times, building a new club in 1912. Dark maroon bricks and lovely tile inserts reveal the availability of better, more durable materials than the soft local brick used in the previous century.
]]>Members of Masonic Lodge #25 built this brick structure in 1882, housing their temple on the second floor. Grocer W. H. Burgess rented first floor space. Economic decline in the late 1880s caused the Masons to lose title, and Burgess, too, went broke. The lodge rented space until 1901, while the lower floor accommodated the Sharp Brothers’ Store. The sons of the Sharp brothers became two of Fort Benton’s famous admirals. Originally one of a pair, the structure displays elaborate brick corbelling typical of the 1880s commercial architecture.
]]>This grandiose, three-story Italianate style hotel welcomed weary river travelers to the Gateway of the Northwest, offering guests a luxurious refuge before setting out for less civilized destinations. Its opening in 1882 came at the end of the steamboat era, when Fort Benton was still an unchallenged commercial hub. The very next year, however, the Northern Pacific transcontinental line was completed across Montana, diminishing the town’s position as a commercial center. Constructed of soft local brick with intricate corbelling and distinctive windows, the “Waldorf of the West” featured a saloon, dining room, a saddle room for cowboys to store their gear in winter, and a secret lookout room where guards could supervise gold shipments. A separate ladies’ stairway led to elegant parlors since women never entered rooms adjoining saloons. Each room had handsome black walnut, marble-topped furnishings and, originally, its own woodstove and fancy chimney. From its vantage point near the docks, the Grand Union presided over the arrival of everything from stamp mills to grand pianos, brought by steamboat and transferred to ox-team freight wagons. The fine design by architect Thomas Tweedy reflects a prosperous and optimistic town, unaware of the imminent coming of the railroad and its disastrous effects on the town’s economy.
]]>Fort Benton’s building boom of 1887-1894 saw the construction of many commercial buildings made of locally produced soft brick. This fine example was built in 1881 as a saddlery by Davidson and Moffitt of Helena. The River Press Company, publisher of the town’s newspaper, purchased the building in 1883. The local news has been printed on these premises ever since. Decorative corbelling and four arches over the front windows and doorway embellished the original one-story structure.
]]>Originally this site was occupied by a wooden frame building that housed Mose Solomon’s Medicine Lodge. This legendary saloon was open twenty-four hours a day from spring thaw to first snow. When the building burned, prominent lawyer, customs collector, insurance agent, and stockman Thomas Cummings replaced it with this two-story brick structure. Cummings sold out and the building then housed a Chinese restaurant and emporium with an opium den in the basement until the turn of the twentieth century.
]]>Financial ruin in the wake of the Civil War brought brothers Charles E. and William G. Conrad from Virginia to Fort Benton in 1867. Both quickly rose from clerks with I. G. Baker’s mercantile to full company partners in Baker’s vast western empire, eventually broadening their business concerns and amassing huge fortunes. Charles built this first home for himself and his bride, Alicia, following their marriage in 1881. They remained here until 1890. Commercial builder John R. Wilton designed the locally unique residence of soft Fort Benton brick in the Carpenter Gothic style. The distinctive home, with its tall arched windows, steep gables, and delicate scrollwork, originally had an ornate wooden porch that spanned the front. Behind her new house Alicia planted Fort Benton’s first garden, delighting residents long used to tired produce shipped in by steamer. The next year gardens bloomed all over town.
]]>When fire destroyed the original Church of the Immaculate Conception in 1905, this beautiful Tudor style structure of rough cut stone and ornamental half-timbered gables replaced it in 1907. Salvaged from the blaze was a bell christened in 1880 for prominent resident Michael Flanagan. The bell, known as the “Voice of Michael,” still serves the community from its lofty perch in the stone bell tower. Stained glass memorial windows, dedicated to some of Fort Benton’s pioneer families, adorn the interior.
]]>I. G. Baker and T. C. Power built the original Twing House in 1868. Under the watchful eye of Mrs. Twing, this “downtown” hotel competed with the Overland. The hotel closed in 1870 and was rented as military officers’ quarters. It reopened as the Choteau House in 1879, owned and operated by dapper Irishman Jere Sullivan. His glib tongue promoted both his hostelry and Fort Benton. Sullivan gradually rebuilt the structure in brick and added the third story during the homestead days.
]]>Minneapolis architects Kees and Fisk drew the plans for this magnificent Queen Anne style courthouse, which opened in 1884. As the seat of one of Montana’s nine original counties, its grand appearance represents the early affluence of this “Chicago of the Plains.” The building is constructed of soft local brick with cut granite trim and features a square clock tower. Though the clock was never added, stone inserts and pilasters provide ample adornment. Original chairs and desks furnish the dignified second-floor courtroom.
]]>The bank was established June 1, 1880, by T. E. Collins, Charles Duer and L. H. Hershfield and Brother. It was first located in the Benton Record Building, then moved to this location in October 1881. The bank remained here until the large two-story building was built on the corner, and its name was changed to Stockmen’s National Bank. This site had previously housed Wells Fargo and the Benton-Helena Stage Company; in later years the telegraph office was located here.
]]>From the 1850s to 1887, Fort Benton was the trade center for this region of the American and Canadian West. Like others who chose to stay when the fur trade declined, I. G. Baker (the last American Fur Company factor at the fort) turned to new endeavors. Through the 1870s and 1880s, the I. G. Baker Company was Montana’s largest mercantile enterprise. But when the company began, in 1865-1866, Baker and his brother George had only a log store along the levee. Baker’s wife joined him here in 1867, and he began to construct this home—then a two-room adobe with a sod roof. In it, Montana Territory’s acting governor Thomas F. Meagher ate his last meal before his mysterious drowning in 1867. Sometime in the next decade, two rooms to the rear were added and metal replaced the sod roof. In 1876, a second remodeling added clapboard siding, a shingle roof, and the front portico. The front room on the left became as it appears today. The mercantile Conrad family also called this building home, and it once was used as officer’s quarters for the fort.
]]>Founded in 1846 as the fur trade transitioned from furs to buffalo robes, Fort Benton was both a trading post and a center for distribution of Indian annuities. In the early 1860s, Montana’s gold rush and the initiation of steamboat traffic made the town a freighting and transportation hub, the toughest town in the Northwest, and a military post. Hopeful miners and adventurers came up the Missouri River through the wonders of the White Cliffs area and disembarked on Fort Benton’s levee. Busted or flush, they returned in the fall headed for “the states,” as did most who served or preyed upon them. Millions of dollars of gold accompanied the lucky few aboard steamboats and mackinaws. When the placers played out, Fort Benton merchants found new markets north along the Whoop-Up Trail. The first trade goods included whiskey to the Indians; later, more respectable merchandise reached settlers and the Northwest Mounted Police. Entrepreneurs I. G. Baker, T. C. Power, W. S. Wetzel, and Charles and William Conrad developed the territory’s largest banking and mercantile operations. Wagons rolled in all directions from Fort Benton, the self-proclaimed “Chicago of the Plains.” The world’s innermost port flourished until railroads reached the region. In 1887, the steamboat trade’s glory days ended. The economy shifted toward the sheep and cattle industry, with area ranches shipping large herds to markets in Chicago. In the early 1900s, thousands of homesteaders flocked to the region, and Fort Benton prospered as the center of trade for the fertile "Golden Triangle."
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