Monarch Depot Historic District
Rich silver deposits in the Little Belt Mountains brought the Montana Central (later Great Northern) Railway to Monarch in 1890. Soon spur lines branched out to the nearby mining towns of Barker, Hughesville, and Neihart. After the original depot burned in 1900, a replacement was built using a similar plan. Oriented so the long axis aligns to the tracks, the classic, small-town “combination” depot contains four rooms. To the north is a large freight and baggage room with pocket-style freight doors on both the home track and town sides to facilitate the movement of goods. A small ticket office sits in the center of the building. To the south are two rooms: a waiting room and the depot agent’s living quarters. Just outside, the double outhouse follows the Great Northern’s standard six-foot-by-six-foot privy design. It is one of two known remaining Great Northern depot privies still standing in Montana. The depot received stock ordered by local businesses and timber, steel, and equipment used to build area mines. In return, it shipped out ore from area mines and agricultural products from local farms. Passengers included leisure seekers from Great Falls, who arrived on chartered excursion trains. In the 1910s, a “fish train” left Great Falls every Sunday at 6:15 a.m., bringing anglers as well as small fish in ten-gallon milk cans to stock area fishing holes. As the mining industry declined, and automobiles’ popularity increased, the Great Northern Railway closed the line. Many locals boarded the last train on November 3, 1945, for the final run.
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