Clack Home

By The Montana National Register Sign Program

Clack Home Clack Home (PAc 91-51 Havre R03 F21). Front to side view of the house, facing southwest on 2nd Avenue. B&W. Source: Montana State Historic Preservation Office from the Photograph Archives at the Montana Historical Society Creator: Photographer unidentified Date: Jan. 1988

H. Earl Clack’s first Havre enterprise was a feed and hay transfer business begun with a wagon and two horses. As agriculture expanded in the area, he built a group of five grain elevators and in 1914 added hardware and farm implements. The year before, he had begun his own oil business, which eventually distributed petroleum products to 200 outlets in four states. Clack’s business grew with his insight into the potential of automobile use. In 1918, he built northern Montana’s first drive-in service station and during the 1920s built motels in conjunction with service stations in Montana and Idaho. His own “Hi-Power” brand gasoline was sold at more than 30 service stations in Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming by the 1950s. In 1954, the company merged with Husky Oil Company. H. Earl Clack was active in community service and established a scholarship fund at Northern Montana College; during the 1920s agricultural depression, he was known to carry the fuel accounts of area ranchers, stating, “If we fail, we’ll fail together.” This home, the Clack family’s second in Havre, was built in 1927, designed by local architect Frank Bossuot as an outstanding example of Georgian Revival architecture.