Turned porch supports, elaborately carved brackets, a baluster frieze, and decorative cresting along the roofline ornament this gable-front-and-wing residence. Railroads brought these precut architectural elements to small towns along their tracks,…

Despite the crippling effects of the Great Depression, American auto tourists took to the roads in record numbers in the 1930s. To lure these tourists to Montana, the state highway department’s Robert Fletcher developed an ambitious promotional…

The Northern Pacific Railroad steamed through the Yellowstone Basin in 1883, passing the small agricultural community of Carlton. The town was renamed Laurel, and a post office opened there in 1886. When the Rocky Fork Railroad, an affiliate of the…