A fleet of twelve hundred masons and carpenters flocked to Warm Springs Creek in 1883 to build Marcus Daly’s Anaconda Company smelter. Daly hired Welsh masonry contractor John “Jack” W. Cornelius to oversee the construction process for his enormous facility. Jack built this Queen Anne style house in 1885 for his wife and four children. Originally, the house’s wood frame was clad with brick veneer. By 1890, Jack added an open, wraparound front porch. A later owner covered the brick with aluminum siding and enclosed the front porch after 1940. In 1890, the Corneliuses moved to Great Falls and rented the house to boarders. They sold it in 1898 to Northern Pacific foreman Henry Rees. From 1915 to 1917, the Church of Christ, Scientist met here on Sundays and Wednesdays. Mary Baker Eddy founded the church in Boston in 1879 on the belief that sickness can be healed by prayer. Anaconda’s branch welcomed the public to use its free circulating library and held services with topics ranging from “Sacrament” to “Is the Universe, Including Man, Evolved from Atomic Force?”
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