Ranchers George and Mary Downing purchased both the house next door and this lot in 1909. In 1915, the Downings moved existing buildings onto the empty lot and constructed this vernacular (builder-designed) home. The asymmetrical façade and decorative porch columns are indicative of the Queen Anne style, while the low-pitched hipped roof and overhanging eaves reflect the influence of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Prairie style. The builder adapted the buildings, a common practice to save money, while delivering the “modern” aesthetic the Downings desired. By 1920, the Downing’s son Lewis and his wife Florence had moved into the home. Lewis, a recent pharmacy school graduate, opened Downing Drug Store in 1917. Although the name changed over the years, the pharmacy remained a Hamilton institution for the next eighty years. The Downings raised their two children, Elizabeth and Bill, here. Florence worked as a nurse in Hamilton’s first hospital and was active in the Montana Nurses Association. When she died in 1920, the local chapter of the Montana Nurses Association named a scholarship in her honor. Lewis remained in residence. He died in 1981 at age ninety-three.
]]>This high, rocky outcropping above the confluence of the Yellowstone River and Alkali Creek is central to interpreting Billings area history. For millennia, the Apsáalooke (Crow) Nation used this area for camping and spiritual activities such as fasting, vision quests, and burials. William Clark and members of the Corps of Discovery passed nearby in 1806 on their way back to the Missouri River, signaling change and conflict as Euro-Americans encroached into Indigenous homelands. Piikuni (Blackfeet) warriors killed a group of fur trappers near here in 1823, a smallpox epidemic decimated a nearby Apsáalooke camp, and the Baker Fight five miles northeast ignited tensions between the U.S. Army and numerous Indigenous nations in 1872. Despite bloody battles between the Army and Indian nations to the south in 1876-77, a group of Bozeman businessmen established a town near this site in 1877. Although they strategically located it along the future Northern Pacific Railway route, they named it Coulson after the steamboat company, the Coulson Packet Line. Residents soon established their town cemetery here next to The Place of the Skulls, an Apsáalooke burial site. When the Northern Pacific platted Billings to the west in 1882, Coulson residents moved to Billings, leaving only the cemetery to mark its existence. Ignatius D. O’Donnell, the influential Billings civic leader, irrigation expert, and community historian, later became owner of the Coulson cemetery. He preserved it and built a river stone obelisk in 1920 to mark the burials. O’Donnell later deeded the cemetery to Billings, and a system of parks and trails has since developed from it.
]]>Having raised $350 to begin construction, the Scandinavian Methodists laid the cornerstone of their new church on December 20, 1895. The city had donated the lot, and farmer Robert Nordtome served as architect and lead carpenter. The design included a steeple in the northwest corner (since removed); narrow, pointed windows with wooden tracery; and an attached one-and-one-half-story residence. Contractor Lars Johnson and other Scandinavian farmers, carpenters, and tradesmen donated their labor. The congregation formally dedicated the church in 1905, though they began meeting here much earlier. Until 1910, wood stoves provided heat and oil lamps illuminated the interior. Not everyone supported the church’s construction. A letter to the editor of The Interlake asserted in 1896 that the Methodists were taking needed resources from the Scandinavian Lutheran church. “Most Scandinavians are Lutheran … [and] there were hardly enough people to build one church, to say nothing of two,” according to the letter writer. He particularly objected to the fact that congregation leaders were fundraising as “the Scandinavian church … when they positively know that it is not, and never will be, a church for the majority of the Scandinavian people.” Despite the letter writer’s fears, both churches—constructed within two blocks of each other—served Kalispell’s Scandinavian community for decades. As one of four Montana churches built by the Methodist’s Norwegian-Danish Conference, the church offered services in Norwegian for over forty years. Originally a gathering spot to preserve culture and language as well as to share faith, it became the English-speaking Westside Methodist Church in 1939.
]]>Electrical engineer Edward Mayer demolished his childhood home and an “alley house” behind it in 1928 to build this brick garage for his company Mayer Ignition Works. Ed repaired automobile batteries and electrical wiring here until he retired in 1947. Before Ed built the garage, the Mayer family had a long history at this location. Marcus Daly hired Ed’s father Maxmillian (Max) to be Butte’s first assayer (metals analyst) in 1876. Max later opened a private assaying firm and by 1890 owned two houses on this lot. He and wife Dora and their children lived in a gabled wood-frame house facing South Montana from about 1890 until 1908. They rented the two-room log house in the backyard near the alley to an ever-changing array of widows, mine laborers, and service workers. By 1920, bookkeeper Hubert Nadeau and wife Marie rented the main house; they lived there with their grown children until 1927. Swedish-born spiritualist August Olund was the last person to rent the alley house in 1927. In addition to mining and bartending, he used a crystal ball to tell his clients' fortunes.
]]>Great Northern Railway trainmaster Charles B. Griffin built this Queen Anne style home circa 1902. The home’s cross-gabled roof, full wraparound porch (enclosed in 1959), and shingled gable ends reflect typical Queen Anne details. The interior features hardwood floors, stained-glass transom windows, and marble fireplace surrounds. In 1906 Charles sold the home to lawyer Florian Carnal. Florian, who became deputy county attorney in 1909, was ousted from the Montana Progressive Party in 1913 for being too progressive. Then, in 1919, he lost the house to creditors. Sheep rancher and real estate developer Joseph Valadon purchased the home that year. He immigrated to the U.S. from Flores, Portugal, in 1885 and spent nine years on the Pacific Coast before moving to Havre in 1894. He operated a successful sheep ranch in the Bears Paw Mountains but sold out in 1910 to pursue real estate. After purchasing this home, he traveled back to Portugal where he married Policeena Martins. They returned to Havre and raised four daughters in the home. Joseph died in 1950, and Policeena remained in residence until her death in 1992.
]]>An unusual two-story angled bay ornaments the façade of this modified cross-gable home. Built circa 1900, the “Free Classic” style residence features Queen Anne characteristics including a large wraparound porch, turned balustrade, bay windows, and complicated roofline. Daniel Bean arrived in Hamilton in 1895 and moved with wife Mary and their family into this apple orchard-bordered property a few years later. The home still occupied an entire block in 1944. Ill-gotten gains perhaps paid for the gracious residence. Bean was a lumberman associated with copper king Marcus Daly’s massive logging operations, and in 1901 the government charged him and several other defendants with stealing publicly owned timber. By 1899, Bitterroot sawmills, including ones owned by Bean, collectively cut 100 million feet of logs into lumber annually, most of which was destined for Daly’s copper mines and smelter. Obtaining General Land Office permits for logging on public lands was easy, maybe especially so for Bean, whose wife’s uncle served as commissioner of that agency. Nevertheless, many lumbermen cut timber beyond their permits’ limits. In 1907 Bean and his co-defendants--including the Anaconda Copper Mining Company, James Haggin, and others--agreed to pay the U.S. government “$156,000 for timber illegally cut” (approximately $32 million in 2023 dollars). The Ravalli Republic newspaper reported that this was the largest timber trespass settlement to date. Daniel Bean died in 1910. By 1917, Casper Oertli, who operated a threshing outfit, lived here with wife Mary, three children, and Mary’s mother.
]]>Labor leader, politician, and businessman John R. Walkup and wife Mary built this distinctive Richardsonian Romanesque style home in 1896 for $3,500. The heavy rough-cut sandstone foundation, arched porch entrance, window trim, and corner quoins represent the Richardsonian aesthetic. John left New York in 1889 to become a foreman printer at the Anaconda Standard. A natural leader, he was president of the Anaconda Typographical Union, served in the third Montana State Legislature, was the state Fireman’s Association president in 1896, and Anaconda City Treasurer from 1897 to 1899. In 1896, he started an excavation company and also ran businesses selling coal, ice, tobacco, and candy. Archer N. and Clara Jette purchased the home in 1909. Archer was superintendent of masons at the Anaconda Company smelter; Clara stayed home with their son Norman and was active in the Anaconda Woman’s Club. As club president in 1919-20, she helped raise funds to build a women’s cottage at the Montana State Hospital tuberculosis sanitarium. At the time, the sanitarium consisted of a thirty-bed building and six eight-bed cottages, all designed for men. The Jettes retired to California in 1939.
]]>After World War I, Montana entered a recession, and construction slowed dramatically. By 1922, however, Bozeman’s economy had rebounded, and new homes began to fill the vacant lots near downtown and the college. Montana State College chemistry professor Oden E. Sheppard and wife Dorothy purchased this side-gable Craftsman bungalow in 1922 when it was new. The home’s central shed-roof dormer, mix of clapboard and shingle siding, and wide overhanging eaves with exposed rafter tails are stylistic hallmarks. Oden was chemistry department chair from 1931 until his retirement in 1946. He was a founder of the American Chemical Society, chairman of the Rhodes Scholarship committee, and lectured in the community on chemical warfare. Dorothy stayed home to raise ten children in the modest four-bedroom home. In her free time, she organized meetings and gave lectures as chair of the Bozeman Woman’s Club Child Welfare section. Two of the Sheppards' sons and one daughter graduated from Montana State with chemistry degrees and helped establish the O. E. Sheppard Scholarship for chemistry majors. The Sheppards moved to a larger home in 1935.
]]>Craftsman style architecture endeavored to make safe, sanitary homes available to all Americans through economy of construction and materials. Built circa 1915 on a prominent corner lot, this bungalow has many recognizable Craftsman style elements: tapered porch columns, exposed rafters, and decorative brackets beneath wide, overhanging eaves. Also typical is the full-length, open front porch and wood shingle siding, intended to connect the homeowners to the natural world. Less typical is the half story placed in the middle of the home and the decorative rafter ends that accent the façade. Members of the Sullivan family lived here from 1914 into the 1940s. Patrick served two terms as county assessor and then worked for the Anaconda Company as a bookkeeper. His wife Mary was a devout member of Immaculate Conception Church and the mother of seven children, two of whom died young. After Patrick died in 1931 and Mary in 1934, daughter Mildred (a secretary) and son Ivester (a bookkeeper) continued in residence. In 1940 they shared the home with sister Eileen Paul, her husband Frank (a salesman), and their three children.
]]>Local builder Charles Doenges built this Queen Anne cottage in July 1909 for Celia Preston as a rental property. The home’s narrow clapboard siding, shingled dormer, half-round window, and boxed bay window reflect typical stylistic details. Celia and her husband Eugene were prominent in Thompson Falls business and social circles. Celia raised five children, operated rental properties, and helped organize the Home Workers Society—the Methodist Church ladies aid group. Her husband Eugene Preston owned the lumberyard and livery stable and was influential in town affairs. Ralph H. and Lucy Bushnell were this home’s first renters. Ralph was supervisor of the Cabinet National Forest and Lucy was president of the Home Workers Society. During the 1910 “Big Burn,” Ralph directed more than four-hundred men fighting fires near Heron. Mount Bushnell, south of town, was named in his honor. In 1913, Ralph and Lucy moved to Twin Bridges. Power plant electrician John E. Tracy and his widowed mother rented the house that year. Just weeks after they moved in, John helped save the power plant from rising flood waters. He and other plant workers built a five-foot-high concrete wall and installed a sump pump to direct water away from the building. Alben and Marie Johnson and their two children lived here from 1914 until 1925. Alben held various accounting positions in Thompson Falls government, worked at the Thompson Falls Mercantile, and owned a homestead at Camas Prairie. In 1925, he became deputy state bank examiner and later became Montana’s first state controller.
]]>John and Sarah McKee of Ontario, Canada, had this front-gabled Queen Anne style home built in 1893. Originally, elaborate scrollwork decorated the gable end, and a full-width front porch supported by spindlework posts spanned the façade. Great Northern Railway conductor Edward “Teddy” Logan owned the home and rented it to boarders from 1893 to 1899. In 1900, widow Alice E. Clark purchased the home and rented it to newlyweds Charles and Myrtle Norquist. Charles and business partner James Harbert operated The Fair department store. In 1905, the Reverend Alexander Pringle of the nearby Presbyterian Church rented a room in the house. After the Norquists moved to Coeur D’Alene, Idaho, in 1906, the church purchased the house but soon sold it to Mary and John Inglis in 1908. John was a locomotive engineer from Scotland; Mary was a homemaker from Ireland. Their two daughters, Bessie and Grace (who also lived in the house), operated a millinery (hat) shop. After John died in 1911 and Mary in 1920, Bessie and her husband Guy Chrisinger raised five children here. The home remained in the family until the mid-1970s.
]]>Arthur and Sarah Bland moved into this “Free Classic” style home in 1903. Like many multistory residences, the house’s kitchen was placed under a separate, single-story roof to give firefighters a better chance of containing a kitchen fire. Arthur worked as the district court’s bailiff, and the couple also invested in real estate. Sarah was active in the Christian Church and the Mothers’ Club, a group that collected and repaired used clothes to distribute to needy children. The Blands had five sons, but only one still lived at home during their tenancy, so the couple took in roomers. By 1927, the residence had been converted into “housekeeping rooms,” an inexpensive, apartment-style alternative to a rooming house. Most of Montana lost population during the 1920s and 1930s as drought and low commodity prices bankrupted dryland farmers, but not Kalispell, which saw rapid growth and experienced housing shortages. James and Alice Hawks, from Grass Range, Montana, purchased the home in 1935, where they lived with their daughter and son-in-law and two other families.
]]>Anaconda experienced rapid growth in the late 1880s as workers flocked to the city to find smelter jobs. By 1892 Central and Lincoln school classrooms were so overcrowded that school trustees established temporary classrooms in churches and rented buildings. That year, trustees hired Spokane architect W. A. Ritchie to design a modern West Side school. Ritchie’s Romanesque Revival style school blended well with other affluent West Side homes and became a model for other Anaconda schools. The exterior featured brick walls, cut sandstone arches accenting the entrances and windows, and a soaring, offset tower topped with a steep pyramidal roof (since removed). Inside, four large classrooms for grades one through four flanked a central staircase. Students and teachers enjoyed a library, marble-clad restrooms with running water, a principal’s office, teachers’ restroom, and basement playrooms. Trustees were most proud of the school’s heating and ventilation system, which circulated fresh outdoor air through a ductwork system and clean steam heat from a central boiler. The school—named after famous nineteenth-century American historian William H. Prescott—served area children until 1949 when new owners remodeled it to house apartments.
]]>Architect Glen C. McAllister and wife Beatrice built this classic Craftsman style bungalow in June 1915. The home’s full front porch with square, tapered columns and shingled dormer are typical stylistic elements. Glen worked with prominent local architect John G. Link before starting his own firm. During his prolific career Glen designed bungalows, mansions, and civic and commercial buildings in Billings, Sheridan, Wyoming, and Los Angeles, California. It is likely he designed this and other area homes. In 1920, civil engineer Ralph Fifield and wife Ola purchased the home. Ralph—known as the “dean of Montana engineers”—had worked for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, supervising construction of the Huntley Project, a massive irrigation effort to transform 35,000 acres of arid sagebrush prairie into productive farmland. After moving to this home, Ralph operated an irrigation consulting firm and, in 1936, became district supervisor for the Works Projects Administration (WPA). Ola stayed home to raise their three children, hosted Bridge Club parties, and was President of the Masonic De Molay Mother’s Circle Club. The Fifields remained in residence until 1942.
]]>Author Helen Fitzgerald Sanders and her husband—lawyer Louis P. Sanders—built this Queen Anne style home in 1904. The home’s prominent curved wraparound porch, Tuscan columns, spindlework balustrade, and stone retaining wall reflect the Sanders’ wealth and status. Louis was the son of Wilbur Fisk Sanders, a Montana pioneer lawyer, first president of the Montana Historical Society, and the state’s first U.S. Senator. Louis attended Harvard Law School and served in the Spanish-American War. He and Helen married in 1900 and he became a partner at Butte’s Kremer, Sanders, and Kremer law firm. While living here, Helen raised seven children (five survived) and published articles, poetry, and numerous books, including Trails Through the Western Woods (1911) and the massive three-volume History of Montana (1913). She was a member of the Butte Women’s Club, the Homer Club, and worked closely with Jeanette Rankin to secure the vote for Montana women in 1914. She and Louis divorced in 1919, and Helen traveled the world before settling in Washington, D.C. Helen, the eldest Sanders daughter, lived here from 1930 to 1935 with her husband George and their children.
]]>Eastern Montana’s population soared after 1909 as newcomers arrived to claim land under the Enlarged Homestead Act. In 1910-11, Italian immigrants Joseph and Giovanna Ruffatto purchased a homestead and settled with their children in the Charley Creek area south of the Missouri River. When Richland County was carved out of Dawson County in 1914, School District 71 trustees authorized construction of two schools, including a school just south of the Ruffatto’s farmhouse. Since most children walked to school, schools had to be built every few miles. As a cost-saving measure, children in grades one through eight attended Ruffatto School only during the summer months. Because the Ruffatto’s land was so close to the river, it flooded every Spring. To remedy the problem, in 1918, the Ruffattos purchased Joseph’s brother’s homestead farther south of the river. After moving the family farm, the Ruffattos lifted the schoolhouse onto logs, and horse teams hauled the building to this location. Most Montana counties had adopted a standard nine-month school year by 1916, but District 71 trustees did not approve the longer school year until 1919. The shift from summer instruction to winter brought installation of a new wood stove and construction of a vestibule addition for storing winter clothes. For nearly six decades, the Ruffatto School served the educational needs of the tight-knit farming and ranching community and became a community hall for parties, performances, religious and funeral services, elections, and club meetings. The school closed permanently in 1976.
]]>A low-pitched gable roof, open front porch, exposed roof rafters, and decorative braces under large overhanging eaves make this a classic Craftsman style bungalow. Robert and Genevieve Stong and one-year-old Robert Jr. moved into the home shortly after its construction circa 1915. The family welcomed two more sons and lived here into the 1950s. A lawyer, Robert served as Yellowstone County attorney, city alderman, district judge, and president of the Yellowstone Bar Association. Genevieve was a prominent clubwoman, active in Republican politics, and president of the Billings chapter of the Veterans of Foreign Wars Auxiliary. Robert Jr. was living at home and working for the Montana Power Company when the U.S. entered World War II. He became a tank driver with the Second Armored Division of the 66th Armored Regiment, fighting in five major battles, including the Battle of the Bulge. Younger brother John served in the U.S. Navy. Both were honorably discharged in 1945. In 1955, Aileen Bohlinger purchased the home, remaining here into the 1980s. Her son John served as lieutenant governor from 2005 to 2013.
]]>Charles M. Crutchfield moved to Hamilton in 1895 to work as Marcus Daly’s attorney. In 1896, his young family moved into this elegant Queen Anne style house. The home’s distinctive features include a gracious wraparound porch with carved porch apron and two-story cutaway bay with decorative panels. After Daly’s death, Charles continued work for the Anaconda Company, became vice president of the Ravalli County Bank, and opened his own law office. He also built a Main Street business block. Charles served in Montana’s first, second, sixth, and eleventh legislative sessions and was twice considered a possible Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate. Liver disease cut short his political pursuits and ended his life at forty-eight, leaving wife Lena to raise their five children. Lena hosted events for the Episcopal Church, was a charter member of the Hamilton Hospital Guild, served as a trustee for the school board, and achieved the status of Matron in the Masonic Order of the Eastern Star. She remained in residence with her two daughters until she died in 1958.
]]>Reno and Lorene Sales purchased this Prairie style home circa 1910. Known as “the father of mining geology,” Reno Sales worked forty years as the Anaconda Company’s chief geologist. Early in his career, the Apex Law—a federal statute that allowed claim owners to follow mineral veins from where they surfaced (the apex) anywhere underground—resulted in hundreds of court cases. To defend Anaconda's rich ore holdings, Sales developed a geological field mapping system that became the industry standard. Lorene hosted Homer Club meetings where Butte’s elite women discussed history, literature, and current events. Meningitis claimed their first daughter’s life in 1911; they welcomed daughter Barbara in 1913. Lorene left Butte in 1926 so Barbara could attend the Castilleja School, a girls prep school in Palo Alto, California, founded by Helena’s Mary Lockey. Reno continued to work in Butte but rented the house to Harry and Polly Cochrane. Harry, Montana Power’s chief engineer, also sent his daughter to Castilleja. When Barbara Sales died in a car accident in 1934, the Cochrane family hosted her funeral at the home.
]]>Claude A. and Madge Colby bought this well-preserved Craftsman style bungalow in 1919. The home displays typical features of the genre including a low-pitched hipped roof, unboxed eaves with exposed rafter tails, and a front porch with tapered columns. Claude and Madge were both education advocates. Claude worked at the Missoulian newspaper and Madge was a teacher who participated in Missoula’s P. E.O. Sisterhood, a group that raised money for women’s education. Retirees John F. and Catherine Fox purchased the house in 1926. They had operated a mercantile in Twin Bridges but moved to Missoula to be close to their children and grandchildren. Their daughter Edna Fox McCormick earned a bachelor’s degree in fine arts from University of Montana in 1910. Her husband—lawyer Washington J. McCormick II—served in the state legislature in 1918. His father was an early developer in Missoula and the Bitterroot Valley and his uncle was Missoula founder Christopher P. Higgins. The Foxes spent summers in the home and rented to students until Edna and her daughters moved to the house in 1938.
]]>Famous yet nearly forgotten feminist writer Mary Elizabeth MacLane wrote her groundbreaking autobiographical book in the north half of this brick bay-fronted multi-family residence in 1901. The Story of Mary MacLane—originally titled I Await the Devil’s Coming—captivated young adults and shocked conservative readers with its confessional, often sensual portrayal of Mary’s life at age nineteen. Soon after its release in April 1902, fans flocked to this building hoping to meet the frank author who described Butte as all “sand and barrenness” and “the near perfection of ugliness.” Although the 1898 building was nearly new when Mary’s family moved here in 1900, the neighborhood was bleak. Loaded ore cars rumbled past day and night on tracks a half-block away, and scrubby undeveloped lots surrounded her Upper West Side home. Mary moved to Boston in 1903 but returned in 1909 to live with her family on Diamond Street. Though her fame had faded by the time she died in 1929, her work gained renewed attention in the 1970s. Efforts to restore the building to its early 1900s character began in 2006.
]]>Tasked with patrolling thousands of acres of public land in the Bitterroot Forest Reserve (later named the Bitterroot National Forest) rangers Henry “Hank” C. Tuttle and Nathaniel E. "Than" Wilkerson built this one-room cabin in 1899. It is the oldest building associated with the Forest Service, built under the Forest Reserve Act when the agency was part of the General Land Office. Hank and Than selected a site near the Alta mining camp, harvested the logs, and spent two weeks building the walls and sod roof. From this simple station, they carried out their official duties issuing timber and mining permits, clearing trail, and preventing wildfires. According to the Forest Service’s first director Gifford Pinchot, a ranger had to “take care of himself and his horses under very trying conditions; build trails and cabins; ride all day and all night; pack, shoot, and fight fire without losing his head. He must know a good deal about the timber of the country and how to estimate it; he must be familiar with lumbering and the sawmill business, the handling of livestock, mining, and the land laws.” Unfortunately, a land survey revealed that the rangers built the station on Pete Bennett’s mining claim. The cabin was relinquished to Bennett and another cabin was built nearby. In 1941, the Hamilton Lions Club purchased the land and donated the historic station to the Forest Service for preservation. After narrowly escaping the fires of 2000, the cabin remains a symbol of the agency’s ongoing work to preserve and protect public land.
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