Romney Residence

Anaconda Company carpenters built this Folk Victorian style home circa 1900. A central Palladian window and decorative bargeboard in the clipped gable end embellish the modest home. In 1903, Miles Romney Sr. and wife Bessie moved here. They published The Western News—an independent, weekly newspaper—and Miles Sr. became a politician working to limit corporate power in state government. He served as mayor of Hamilton from 1902 to 1904 and a Montana state senator from 1906 to 1910. In 1911, he created the People’s Power League, which successfully introduced pivotal ballot initiatives to reform corrupt election practices. Bessie died in 1925, and Miles Sr. died in 1943. Their son Miles Jr. and wife Ruth inherited the home and continued publishing the newspaper. Miles Jr. furthered his father’s political legacy, serving in the Montana legislature and as a delegate to the 1972 Montana Constitutional Convention. He supported conservation efforts and created a coal tax trust fund, which turned a finite resource (coal) into a renewable one by investing the coal companies’ payments. He died in 1976; Ruth remained in residence until she died in 2000.

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