Between 1901 and 1918, Havre was one of seventeen Montana cities receiving grant funds from the Andrew S. Carnegie Foundation for construction of a public library. Havre filed their request for funding with the foundation in 1912, after outgrowing…

Frontier capitalist C. A. Broadwater received the contract to provide locally manufactured bricks and timber, hauled from the Bear’s Paw Mountains, to construct Fort Assinniboine. He hired five hundred Métis (mixed-blood Chippewa-Cree) from the…

Fort Assinniboine officers pooled their resources to pay enlisted men an extra .25 per day to build a gathering place for the officers, their wives, and visiting dignitaries. Troops likely quarried the stone for the one-story building in the…

The post’s first library was relegated to a small space at the back of the Signal Corps office, but in 1888-89 the military spent $1,409.13 to build a one-story, brick, hipped-roof library with multiple wings. A visiting Helena reporter called the…

Before modern refrigerators, ice provided a primary means of keeping food fresh. Each winter, troops would harvest ice from the nearby Beaver Creek reservoir, the Milk River, and Milk River tributaries. The work required specialized tools, including…

A row of thirteen mansard-roofed officers’ quarters, flanked by two flat-roofed apartment buildings, defined the northeast side of the parade grounds. Ten of the buildings were duplexes, most like this one, designed to house married officers and…

A battlement-topped octagonal turret—a traditional military architectural symbol—distinguishes Fort Assinniboine’s Company Officers’ Quarters. Built in 1880 under supervision of Major J. C. C. Lee, the six-unit building asserted permanency and…

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…

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…

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…