Havre Residential Historic District
The Havre Residential Historic District represents Havre’s economic growth and social change from 1895 to the 1940s. Located primarily at the district’s northwestern edge, turn-of-the-century homes of the social and business elite are large residences built in Queen Anne/Colonial Revival and Neo-Colonial styles. Their owners’ fortunes were made from providing supplies and services to soldiers at nearby Fort Assinniboine, homesteaders, and Great Northern Railway employees. As a railroad division point, Havre became home to white-collar workers who built smaller homes in the district. By 1907, the Craftsman bungalow was the preferred housing style. These smaller, one- or one-and-a-half-story dwellings reflect the security of the middle class in Montana during the first decades of the twentieth century. Havre’s establishment as Hill County seat in 1912 coincided with the Progressive political movement that sought clean cities with suitable housing for all. Between 1913 and 1917, the Home Builders Investment Company—created by local Progressives—built more than 100 homes. Post World War I depression dampened construction in the district, but late-1920s railroad expansion caused a housing boom. Homes subsequently built here during the Great Depression utilized lower-cost materials and simpler designs.
Gussenhoven House
Havre Residential Historic District
Joseph and Susanne Gussenhoven built this two-and-one-half-story Free Classic Queen Anne style home, known locally as “the Castle,” in 1903. Particular to this style are the irregular roofline, octagonal corner tower, textured walls, large porches, and Free Classic detailing, including Doric…
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John H. Mathews House
Havre Residential Historic District
Distinguished by its bell-cast porch roof, scalloped shingles decorating the front dormer, and classical columns on the front porch, this wood-frame home was built during the Victorian era, sometime between 1892 and 1903. John Mathews, an agent for the Great Northern Express Company, owned the home…
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Boone/Dalrymple House
Havre Residential Historic District
The sunburst motif on the front gable end of this single-story, hipped-roof residence signals the builder’s debt to the Queen Anne style. Havre pioneer Daniel H. Boone and his wife, Elizabeth, owned the four-square residence. Built before 1903 and perhaps as early as 1892, it is among Havre’s older…
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A. D. Smith House
Havre Residential Historic District
Alexander “Nosey” D. Smith came to Havre as a Great Northern Railroad conductor when the first trains came through town in the mid-1890s. He purchased two lots for $5 in 1897 and built this late Victorian Folk style home in 1902. Multi-light windows and the steeply pitched roof with rolled edges…
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Havre Post Office
Havre Residential Historic District
Red brick, finely crafted stonework, and a colonnade reminiscent of a Greek temple brought an imposing federal symbol to Havre in the 1930s. Securing state and federal funds for this post office was an expression of optimism during economic depression. It was also remarkable as one of only three…
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Havre Masonic Temple
Havre Residential Historic District
The five-story Masonic Temple was Havre’s largest building at the time of its opening in 1916. Its solid massing follows a longstanding Masonic tradition of erecting lodges whose size and bulk symbolize the permanency and stability of masonry itself. The members of Havre Lodge #55, first organized…
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Hill County Courthouse
Havre Residential Historic District
A major fire that destroyed ninety percent of Havre’s business district in 1904 also sparked the town’s transformation from a frontier community to a Progressive-era town. Rebuilding Havre coincided with a nationwide reform movement that promoted civic beauty as a vehicle for social and economic…
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Crosson-VanBuskirk Home
Havre Residential Historic District
Prominent builder Abe Crosson acquired this property in 1911. By 1916, a booster brochure proclaimed the frame Colonial Revival residence one of Havre’s beautiful homes. In 1936, Great Northern Railroad conductor Ray VanBuskirk and his Irish-born wife, Marie, purchased the residence, establishing a…
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St. Mark's Episcopal Church
Havre Residential Historic District
Havre's first Episcopal church service was held in 1900 at Fort Assinniboine, south of Havre. After the arrival of the Reverend Leonard J. Christler in 1907, regular services were conducted in town. The Reverend Christler immediately began plans for a permanent church, and groundbreaking took…
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Exzelia Pepin House
Havre Residential Historic District
Born in Quebec, Exzelia Pepin followed his uncle Simon Pepin—Havre’s town founder—to Montana in 1888, a year after the Great Northern Railway reached Fort Assinniboine. Not long after, the Great Northern decided to build a division point at what was then called Bull Hook Bottoms. Exzelia was among…
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Lou Lucke Sr. House
Havre Residential Historic District
The quintessential businessman, Lou Lucke arrived in Havre in 1903, where he founded a shoe repair and later a clothing store and a dry cleaning business. He also speculated in real estate. When the homestead boom in turn boomed Havre, Lou and local contractor Cassius Taylor developed Havre’s…
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Carlin House
Havre Residential Historic District
There was no sign of the impending Great Depression in January 1929. Havre had spent half a million dollars on construction the year before, and the future looked bright. Among those kept busy by Havre’s growth was prolific local builder Christ Fuglevand. Fuglevand, who built over fifty homes in…
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