Havre Residential Historic District
The Havre Residential Historic District represents Havre’s economic growth and social change from 1895 to the 1940s. Located primarily at the district’s northwestern edge, turn-of-the-century homes of the social and business elite are large residences built in Queen Anne/Colonial Revival and Neo-Colonial styles. Their owners’ fortunes were made from providing supplies and services to soldiers at nearby Fort Assinniboine, homesteaders, and Great Northern Railway employees. As a railroad division point, Havre became home to white-collar workers who built smaller homes in the district. By 1907, the Craftsman bungalow was the preferred housing style. These smaller, one- or one-and-a-half-story dwellings reflect the security of the middle class in Montana during the first decades of the twentieth century. Havre’s establishment as Hill County seat in 1912 coincided with the Progressive political movement that sought clean cities with suitable housing for all. Between 1913 and 1917, the Home Builders Investment Company—created by local Progressives—built more than 100 homes. Post World War I depression dampened construction in the district, but late-1920s railroad expansion caused a housing boom. Homes subsequently built here during the Great Depression utilized lower-cost materials and simpler designs.
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