Newcomers flooded into Great Falls in the 1910s as the mining industry boomed and businesses grew. Waiting lists for apartments, hotels, and boarding houses encouraged building on speculation. Joseph Bullock, a retired laborer for the B & M Mining Company, was one such investor who built these apartments in 1916. Light-colored brick with darker polychrome accents recall commercial architecture of the period, but the tapered columns, decorative railings, and a wood stairway for each entry lend an inviting, homey appeal. Four street-level entries, two of them with original decorative sidelights, access the separate units. Early residents included a bank teller, dentist, gas company superintendent, newspaper editor, and the organist at the Fox Liberty Theatre. In 1920, Anna Clark was in residence. Federal census information suggests that Anna held the building’s mortgage. Her husband, Charles F. Clark, owned a successful skylight and sheet metal business. Having survived the deadly 1918 Spanish flu, he died a few weeks later of an allergic reaction during a dental procedure. The inscription “Clark 1919,” added after the original construction, likely commemorates Anna’s husband.
Images