Missoula Downtown Historic District

25 Locations | Curated by Historic Montana

In 1865, Christopher Higgins, Francis Worden, and David Pattee constructed grist and lumber mills near where the Mullan Road (now Front Street) intersected with present day Higgins Avenue. Worden’s 1874 Carpenter Gothic home on East Pine, once a quiet residential street, commemorates this early period. Arrival of the Northern Pacific Railroad in 1883 brought new growth. Soon Western Commercial style hotels and business blocks lined Missoula’s streets, including the brick-paved Railroad Street. Noteworthy architect-designed buildings from the period included the Tudor style Missoula Hotel, the Richardsonian Romanesque style Higgins Block, and the eclectic expansion of the Missoula Mercantile (originally constructed in 1877). The economic Panic of 1893 stilled Missoula’s development. After 1900, economic recovery fostered a new building boom, especially after the 1908 arrival of the Milwaukee Road, Missoula’s second railway. High style façades topped with elaborate cornices signified the city’s coming of age. Classical civic buildings from the era include the A. J. Gibson-designed 1903 Carnegie Library and 1910 County Courthouse. Architects of statewide and regional note designed other landmark buildings within the district, including the 1910 neoclassical Independent Telephone Company, the 1921 Sullivanesque Wilma Theater, the 1937 Art Deco Zip Auto Building, and the 1941 Moderne Florence Hotel. Construction slowed during the Great Depression, but two large public works projects—the 1936 Forest Service Regional Headquarters and a 1937 addition to Missoula’s Federal Building and Courthouse—demonstrated the federal government’s importance to Missoula’s economy. The preservation of these and almost 400 other buildings in the fifty-two block district record Missoula’s history on its streets.

Missoula’s first commercial district developed southwest of the Northern Pacific Railroad depot in the 1880s and 1890s. But as the town blossomed, a new central business district began to take shape. The Palace Hotel, constructed at what was then the corner of West Cedar and Stevens (now Broadway…
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William and Eliza Reid built this elegant home around 1890. Primarily used as a rental, the house began as a much simpler ell-shaped residence. Widow Jennie Thompson, who rented the home in 1900, lived here with her three grown children, one of whom worked as a photographer. A remodel between 1902…
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John M. Lucy’s furniture store and undertaking business was twenty years old when he had this building constructed for it in 1909. By then, the Irish immigrant (who had arrived in Montana as a workhand building the final leg of the Northern Pacific Railroad) had been joined in business by his sons…
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Poised on the brink of the homesteading boom, Missoula prospered at the turn of the twentieth century with signs of urban growth evident in the hotels and row houses that began to line this busy corridor. Local contractor/architect Eugene Morin purchased this property in 1904 and designed the…
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The Hammond Arcade Building is an outstanding example of Art Deco commercial architecture, with its polychrome brick work, concrete column construction, and original wraparound metal awning. Its interior arcade, which never has been remodeled, is unusual for the period. On this site had stood…
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Mary Gleim, one of Missoula’s most colorful characters, built this “female boarding house” at the heart of the red light district between 1893 and 1902. It operated as a brothel until progressive reforms closed the district in 1916. The building later became an automobile repair shop. Mary owned…
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Built in 1893, this is an excellent example of vernacular adaptation of Romanesque architecture, with its arched windows, checkerboard banding, and rusticated granite sills. Today the building has been restored on its façade and east and west sides to the original appearance. Historically, the…
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The original Florence Hotel, built on this site in 1888, offered weary railway travelers and settlers a comfortable night’s lodging. When it burned in 1913, the Florence was rebuilt as a major 106-room hostelry and was a longtime regional gathering place until it, too, was destroyed by fire in…
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The Brunswick Hotel, built 1890-1891, is an excellent example of vernacular commercial architecture, with a Queen Anne emphasis. It is one of Missoula’s oldest remaining hotels associated with the beginning of the railroad era here, when hotels arose to serve rail workers and passengers. The…
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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.…
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