Exposed rafter tails add a fashionable Craftsman style accent to this one-story residence. The inviting, open front porch also reflects the Craftsman ideal; the style’s southern California originators intended large front porches to connect homeowners to their natural surroundings. In other respects, the house resembles the working-class hipped roof cottages common to company towns and railroading communities across the United States. In Forsyth, the prevalence of these houses reflected a large population of railroad workers, whose well-paid union jobs meant that they could afford to live in single family homes. Likely built circa 1907, after the Milwaukee Road arrived in Forsyth, the residence became home to Hallet (Hal) and Bertha Withington by 1914. Withington lived in Montana for seventy-two of his ninety-five years, primarily in Forsyth. He managed the grocery department of the old Richardson Mercantile for thirty years and was an active Mason. However, he was best known locally for an uncharacteristically adventurous episode—his youthful, brief, and unprofitable expedition to the Klondike during the 1897 gold rush.
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