The maturing streetscape that greeted early rail passengers to Bozeman included a distinctive group of three brick buildings on East Main Street. The smallest, last constructed, and most lavish of these was this Italianate structure completed in 1883-84. An ornate and narrow building, it features an elegantly bracketed cornice, decorative window hood moldings, and stone corner quoins. It originally flanked a large, relatively plain business block (no longer standing). The building at 25 E. Main was then nearly identical to this one and bordered the other side. Dr. Achilles Lamme, who arrived in the Gallatin Valley in 1865, owned the three buildings. The rancher and merchant invested heavily in the town’s future, even forming a steamboat company that attempted to ship freight to Bozeman via the Yellowstone River. Although he volunteered his expertise as a trained physician when the need arose, Lamme never formally practiced medicine in Montana. He instead concentrated on making his fortune by wholesaling supplies to troops stationed at FortEllis and retailing goods to early settlers from this Main Street headquarters in this building.
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