Fort Benton Historic District

21 Locations | Curated by Historic Montana

Founded in 1846 as the fur trade transitioned from furs to buffalo robes, Fort Benton was both a trading post and a center for distribution of Indian annuities. In the early 1860s, Montana’s gold rush and the initiation of steamboat traffic made the town a freighting and transportation hub, the toughest town in the Northwest, and a military post. Hopeful miners and adventurers came up the Missouri River through the wonders of the White Cliffs area and disembarked on Fort Benton’s levee. Busted or flush, they returned in the fall headed for “the states,” as did most who served or preyed upon them. Millions of dollars of gold accompanied the lucky few aboard steamboats and mackinaws. When the placers played out, Fort Benton merchants found new markets north along the Whoop-Up Trail. The first trade goods included whiskey to the Indians; later, more respectable merchandise reached settlers and the Northwest Mounted Police. Entrepreneurs I. G. Baker, T. C. Power, W. S. Wetzel, and Charles and William Conrad developed the territory’s largest banking and mercantile operations. Wagons rolled in all directions from Fort Benton, the self-proclaimed “Chicago of the Plains.” The world’s innermost port flourished until railroads reached the region. In 1887, the steamboat trade’s glory days ended. The economy shifted toward the sheep and cattle industry, with area ranches shipping large herds to markets in Chicago. In the early 1900s, thousands of homesteaders flocked to the region, and Fort Benton prospered as the center of trade for the fertile "Golden Triangle."

Prominent Montana merchant and cattleman John T. Murphy, who also ran a major freighting outfit between Fort Benton and the mining camps, went into partnership with Samuel Neel to build this commercial building in 1880 at a cost of $15,000. The impressive one-story brick building on the riverfront…
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When Frank Coombs teamed up with architect Thomas Tweedy for the construction of the Grand Union Hotel across the street, they and J. R. Wilton also built this rather unpretentious commercial building. Begun in June and completed in September of 1881, it was constructed for the manufacturing,…
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Originally built to house the Stockmen’s National Bank, this solid structure represents typical pre-1900s commercial architecture. Its 1890 construction is significant as one of the few buildings erected after Fort Benton’s heyday and before homesteaders flocked to Montana in the twentieth century.…
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This grandiose, three-story Italianate style hotel welcomed weary river travelers to the Gateway of the Northwest, offering guests a luxurious refuge before setting out for less civilized destinations. Its opening in 1882 came at the end of the steamboat era, when Fort Benton was still an…
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The Fort Benton Engine House, built in 1883, and the Grand Union Hotel are two of only a few structures remaining to remind us of the rapid expansion here during the flourishing steamboat days. When Fort Benton incorporated in 1883, a volunteer fire department was organized and a contract let for…
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When railroads replaced steamboats, Fort Benton’s importance as a trade center declined. In response, Fort Benton businessmen formed the Benton Bridge Company to construct a bridge across the Missouri River to capture the trade of the rapidly developing Judith Basin. This first steel bridge across…
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Originally this site was occupied by a wooden frame building that housed Mose Solomon’s Medicine Lodge. This legendary saloon was open twenty-four hours a day from spring thaw to first snow. When the building burned, prominent lawyer, customs collector, insurance agent, and stockman Thomas Cummings…
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After the turn of the twentieth century homesteaders poured into Montana, and by 1910 the area’s land office at Great Falls processed between a thousand and fifteen hundred homestead filings per month. The peaceful little river town of Fort Benton boomed again. Increased population meant more…
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I.  G. Baker and T. C. Power built the original Twing House in 1868. Under the watchful eye of Mrs. Twing, this “downtown” hotel competed with the Overland. The hotel closed in 1870 and was rented as military officers’ quarters. It reopened as the Choteau House in 1879, owned and operated by dapper…
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From the 1850s to 1887, Fort Benton was the trade center for this region of the American and Canadian West. Like others who chose to stay when the fur trade declined, I. G. Baker (the last American Fur Company factor at the fort) turned to new endeavors. Through the 1870s and 1880s, the I. G. Baker…
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Financial ruin in the wake of the Civil War brought brothers Charles E. and William G. Conrad from Virginia to Fort Benton in 1867. Both quickly rose from clerks with I. G. Baker’s mercantile to full company partners in Baker’s vast western empire, eventually broadening their business concerns and…
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In 1867, merchant T. C. Power, destined to become one of the state’s wealthiest and most influential men, brought his first wagonload of goods to Fort Benton, where he set up shop in a borrowed tent. Still in business in 1916, Power constructed a new grocery and department store to cater to…
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St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Fort Benton’s oldest church, is the oldest Episcopal Church in Montana. In continuous service since August 11, 1881, it appears today almost as it did upon opening. Architecturally, this Gothic style building is a fine example of the small community churches being built…
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