Builders completed the “finest house in Montana Territory” in time for prominent Virginia City grocer John S. Rockfellow’s and Mollie McNeil’s wedding reception on January 29, 1867. Guests arrived by wagon to the “mansion on the hill” in a steady stream of “mud, snow, silks, beauty and humanity.” The seven-room, saltbox-form house with Greek Revival style details dwarfed most of the town’s tiny log cabins. It boasted big-city luxuries like a glass transom and sidelight windows around the front door and arched fanlights above the upstairs windows. The mansion also featured spring-fed running water, frescoed ceilings, an indoor bathroom, carpet, and wallpaper. The Rockfellows did not stay long. John died at age thirty-seven of tuberculosis in 1868, and Mollie moved back to New York. Later owners included shoe dealer William P. Armstrong, attorney Theophilus Muffly, and the Morris family. Great Falls state senator Charles Bovey and wife Sue painstakingly restored the home in 1946 as their seasonal residence. The couple spent the next thirty years acquiring, restoring, or rebuilding Virginia and Nevada City businesses and promoting them as a tourist attraction.
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