Hardware store owner, banker, and real estate developer George Miles, nephew of Colonel Nelson A. Miles, hired a contractor to build this hipped-roof cottage around 1910. Following completion of the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad in 1908 and passage of the Enlarged Homestead Act in 1909, newcomers flooded into Miles City and demand for housing soared. Developers focused attention on the spacious lots east of the Northern Pacific tracks. Families and wealthier landowners located away from the tracks, while investors like Miles built small rental cottages and apartment buildings near the tracks. Beulah Cresap and her husband William, the manager of the Golden Rule department store on Main Street, rented this Craftsman style home from 1912 to 1924. The home’s side bay window, exposed rafter tails in the eaves, and front porch (now enclosed) were common architectural elements found on the many Miles City houses built from “pattern book” plans. Dentist Dr. William Smart and wife Lydia bought the home in 1924. Dr. Smart was a state dental examiner and President of the Montana State Dental Association in 1932-33.
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