Frank Liebig House
Situated on a prominent corner lot, this sprawling early-twentieth-century home captures the essence of the late Victorian era. An irregular floorplan, gables and dormers, canted corners, decorative scrollwork, turned porch supports and leaded glass are elements consistent with the Queen Anne style. Clapboard siding and a wide, inviting wraparound porch recall gracious living and times past. James and Margaret Templeman purchased the property in 1909. James, a house carpenter, moved his family west from Virginia in the early 1900s. Several of the Templemans’ five children were also carpenters and builders. Family members likely constructed this home between 1909 and 1912. Frank and Lulu Liebig were the next longtime owners. Liebig, born in Germany to a family interested in forestry, trained in conservation and immigrated to the United States in the 1890s. In 1902, Lewis and Clark Forest Reserve supervisor F. N. Haines hired Liebig as a forest ranger. His long career included fighting forest fires, cutting trails, and preventing the poaching of timber. Stationed first at what would later become Glacier National Park, Liebig also worked on the Kootenai and Flathead National Forests. Liebig married Kalispell native Lulu McMahon in 1907. They lived down the street until 1924 when they moved here and raised six children. Liebig was also a skilled taxidermist and a noted zoologist. A neighbor recalled that animal heads and National Geographic books filled the parlor. The Liebigs’ daughter, nicknamed “Frances of the Forest,” inherited her father’s love for nature, ultimately retiring to a primitive mountaintop cabin where she lived until age 97.
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