In 1910, J. C. Kinney and other local capitalists created the Wibaux Improvement Company to build this handsome two-story business block. Contractor Charles Charmichael of Miles City constructed the “large and commodious building … faced with a high grade red pressed brick and trimmed with red sandstone” for $33,000. According to the Wibaux Pioneer, the building was “strictly modern, hot water heated and hot and cold water in every suite.” A year later, the Improvement Company installed an electric plant with a six-hundred-light capacity in the basement. In addition to a generator imported from St. Paul, Minnesota, the plant also boasted a “large storage battery,” which supplied “commercial lights early in the mornings, [on] dark afternoons,” and at other times the main plant did not operate. The building’s early tenants included a clothing store, drug store, post office, barbershop, and realty and loan company. Kinney was president of First National Bank, and the bank had offices on the second floor. In the 1950s, John Dobrowski converted the building into the Palace Hotel and Cafe, which it remains today.
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