A covered mill race (water channel) that provided power to the nearby Missoula Flour Mill snaked through the backyards of this block from 1864 until the early 1900s. Beginning circa 1884 a laundry business occupied this site. By 1893, Chinese immigrant Gee Quong ran the Sam Quong Hang Laundry. Quong moved the laundry to Main Street in 1901. Circa 1910, Edwin S. Newton built this vernacular style house and a brick carpentry shop behind it. The home features an intricate cross-gable roof line and a cutaway porch with a sloping half-gable above the main entry. Edwin came from Ohio to Missoula in 1890 to work with architect A. J. Gibson. Under Gibson's tutelage, Newton proved an able carpenter and builder. He opened his first shop in the old Missoula Flour Mill in 1894 and soon became a prominent Missoula contractor. Newton’s wife Louise died in 1917, and he married Ina Rockwell in 1918. By 1920, Newton had converted the residence into a duplex. He and Ina lived on one side and managed tenants on the other side until they moved circa 1934.
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