Filed Under Lewistown

Lehman Bunkhouse

Lewistown Courthouse Historic District

Two distinct buildings of different origins but with a shared purpose rest companionably side by side on this site today. Pioneer merchant Charles Lehman constructed the handsome stone segment in the 1890s as a rooming house for his unmarried male employees. By 1908, a rubblestone addition had doubled the size of the original cut stone building. The residence also served rural students who boarded in town while attending the county high school. The old Lehman property was purchased by the Lewistown branch of the Montana Institute for the Arts in 1970. When the new art center needed additional space, the turn-of-the-twentieth-century two-story frame building was literally rescued from the bulldozer and moved here in 1977. Large doors reveal its former function as the carriage house of local district judge Rudolph Von Tobel. The few exterior alterations, including beautiful stained glass from St. Joseph’s Hospital incorporated into a window and a main entry linking the two buildings together, have little altered the original appearances. The complex now serves the community as an art center and as an inspirational model of adaptive reuse.

Images

801 West Broadway, Lewistown
801 West Broadway, Lewistown Rear side view of Lehman Bunkhouse, looking south Creator: Christine Brown, Montana Historical Society Date: Aug 2019
805 West Broadway, Lewistown
805 West Broadway, Lewistown Front view of Lehman Bunkhouse, looking southwest Creator: Christine Brown, Montana Historical Society Date: Aug 2019

Location

801 West Broadway Street, Lewistown, Montana | Private

Metadata

The Montana National Register Sign Program, “Lehman Bunkhouse,” Historic Montana, accessed March 29, 2024, https://historicmt.org/items/show/342.