Twenty-year-old John Vogt arrived in the Beaver Valley in 1910 at the height of the homesteading boom. Boosters promoted "good soil, good climate, good schools, [and] good markets" and touted new dry-land farming techniques that promised high crop yields without irrigation. Not all would-be farmers took out homesteads. The Northern Pacific Railroad already owned 13.3 million acres in Montana, which it had acquired from the federal government to help finance construction of its transcontinental line. Eager for new customers, the railroad aggressively marketed its holdings, offering good terms to anyone interested in acquiring land. With his brother Jacob homesteading nearby, John Vogt purchased this farm from the railroad in 1911. He hired local builder Joe Novantey to construct a two-story residence as well as the farm's centerpiece, a 73-foot-by-35-foot balloon-frame cattle barn. Balloon framing, which used milled lumber instead of timber, was standard practice on the Great Plains. A chicken coop, feed house, and hog shed, also built during Vogt's tenure, reflect his diversified operation. John married Charlotte Bott in 1917, and together the couple weathered drought and low commodity prices before selling the farm to Alfred and Victoria Nunberg in 1929. The Nunbergs survived the Great Depression by raising pigs, chickens, sheep, beef and dairy cattle, wheat, barley, oats, and hay. They also hosted community dances in their barn's large hay loft to supplement their income. Despite hard times, they raised nine children, improved the farm, and enlarged their holdings. Son Fred took over the operation in 1958, actively farming until 1995.
]]>Pierre Wibaux, scion of a distinguished French textile family, arrived here at the settlement of Mingusville in 1883, establishing a cattle ranch about 12 miles north. His herds fared well during the devastating “Hard Winter of 1886-1887,” after which he borrowed family money to buy out less fortunate ranchers. By the mid-1890s, his ranch was one of the largest cattle operations in the nation, running about 65,000 head of cattle and 300 of horses. He sold from 3,000 to 9,000 cattle each year. Wibaux and others persuaded the Northern Pacific Railroad to build stockyards here in 1883, and to enlarge them in 1894. Wibaux campaigned to have Mingusville platted and renamed for him, both of which occurred in 1894. Two years previously, he and Henry Boice of the Berry-Boice Cattle Company had built this office/residence. Wibaux soon took it over completely, and used it during the week to oversee his business interests. The building faced north until W. A. Orgain, a local merchant, purchased the property in 1903 and moved the building to the rear and facing west. Originally it was surrounded by a lush park of grass and arbored vines tended by a French gardener, the water for irrigation and two artificial ponds supplied by an elevated tank filled by a windmill.
]]>Dismayed that his son’s adoptive home had no Catholic Church, Frenchman Achille Wibaux instructed Pierre to build one here. The rancher contributed $2,000 for the construction of this wood-frame, vernacular Gothic Revival structure. It was built in 1895 by R. R. Cummings and Eugene Blias of Glendive. The Wibaux congregation being at that time as a mission of Miles City, and Father Van der Broeck of Miles City superintended the church’s construction. In 1938, the church was enlarged and its exterior walls covered with scoria, a lava rock common to the badlands of the area. Father Leahy, pastor of the church beginning in 1931, conceived the idea of a scoria facing, and volunteers from the congregation went rock-picking in wagons and pickup trucks. Father Leahy recorded that “patient men did a beautiful job of laying the rock up to and on the steeple.” The building served as Wibaux’s Catholic Church until 1965, when a new church was built and this building was converted to a catechism school.
]]>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.
]]>Constructed during Wibaux’s transition period from a cattle town into an agricultural center, this Queen Anne commercial style building originally housed the Smith Saloon. Partners William H. Smith, John R. Cornell, and W. H. North built the saloon between 1904 and 1906 and later sold the business to W. H. Rucker, who operated it until 1917 when he sold the property to the State Bank of Yates. Renamed the Wibaux County Bank, it operated out of here until its failure. In 1923, Wibaux County purchased the building for use as the county courthouse and jail. Since 1952, the City Hall and the public library have occupied the space. The Smith Saloon is an excellent example of early-twentieth-century commercial architecture, with front parapet and battlements, corner pilasters, a tiered belt course with modillions, recessed doorway, and a concrete hood with ornamental concrete support brackets. A primary structure in the historic district, the building remains as the best representative of early Wibaux County government.
]]>In 1910, J. C. Kinney and other local capitalists created the Wibaux Improvement Company to build this handsome two-story business block. Contractor Charles Charmichael of Miles City constructed the “large and commodious building … faced with a high grade red pressed brick and trimmed with red sandstone” for $33,000. According to the Wibaux Pioneer, the building was “strictly modern, hot water heated and hot and cold water in every suite.” A year later, the Improvement Company installed an electric plant with a six-hundred-light capacity in the basement. In addition to a generator imported from St. Paul, Minnesota, the plant also boasted a “large storage battery,” which supplied “commercial lights early in the mornings, [on] dark afternoons,” and at other times the main plant did not operate. The building’s early tenants included a clothing store, drug store, post office, barbershop, and realty and loan company. Kinney was president of First National Bank, and the bank had offices on the second floor. In the 1950s, John Dobrowski converted the building into the Palace Hotel and Cafe, which it remains today.
]]>Harold G. Clark and Orlando Burgess, owners of the Clark Hardware Company, constructed this one-story brick and stucco commercial building in 1916. Representative of the period of Wibaux’s major economic development, it originally housed the hardware store, a funeral parlor, jewelry store, and tailor. Six decorative relief panels ornament the upper portion of the structure. Multicolored brick in a chevron and diamond pattern adorn the space above the center door.
]]>Prominent resident Stephen B. Chappell was the main financial contributor and owner of this magnificent edifice constructed in 1911. The building combines two structures that are unified by a single façade treatment. The Chappell Hotel, First State Bank, and a grocery store were the original occupants. Meticulous craftsmanship, colorful brickwork, and lavish architectural ornamentation above the two main entries result in a beautifully sophisticated example of early-twentieth-century architecture in a small western town.
]]>From its roots as a pre-1900s cattle town to a farming community after the turn of the century, Wibaux well illustrates the transformation borne by many small Montana towns. This historic district reflects the high point of the town’s influence as an agricultural center. The dryland farming movement (1905-1915) brought an influx of settlers which in turn increased the number of farms and eliminated open range cattle ranching. Wibaux experienced a shift from the stockyard industry to agricultural trade. When a devastating fire swept away the principal business blocks in the district in 1906, the frame, false-fronted buildings and board sidewalks became a thing of the past. One- and two-story closely grouped brick buildings constructed between 1905 and 1917 replaced most of the frame structures. Today these give the district its architectural cohesiveness, featuring transitional stylistic elements between Classical Revival and the more modern “Prairie” school of commercial design. In 1910 alone, commercial construction expenditures exceeded $92,000, and Wibaux supported almost 50 businesses. The town had come a long way from its 1880 origins and its lively reputation as one of the “toughest towns north of the Rio Grande.”
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