HomeMy WebLinkAboutAn Historic and Architectural Context Bozeman, MontanaBOZEMAN, MONTANA:
An Historic and Architectural Context
2008 Revised Edition
Renewable Technologies, Incorporated
8 W Park St, Suite 313 • Butte, Montana 59701
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BOZEMAN, MONTANA:
AN IDSTORIC AND ARCIDTECTURAL CONTEXT
2008 Revised Edition
Prepared for:
Department of Planning and Community Development
City of Bozeman
P.O. Box 1230
Bozeman, Montana 59771
Prepared by:
Renewable Technologies, Inc.
8 West Park Street, Suite 313
Butte, Montana 59701
September 2008
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
PROJECT BACKGROUND AND MEmODOLOGY ............................................................................ 2
METHODOLOGY .......................................................................................................................................... 2
ORGANIZATION OF THE REPORT .................................................................................................................. 3
2007-08 ADDITIONS TO THE REPORT .......................................................................................................... 4
IDSTORICAL INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................. 5
THE GALLA TIN vALLEY BEFORE SETTLEMENT .......................................................................................... 5
BOZEMAN'S URBAN DEVELOPMENT ........................................................................................................... 6
PHASES OF IDSTORICAL AND ARCIDTECTURAL DEVELOPMENT .......................................... 8
INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................................ 8
TOWNSITE PHASE (1864-1872) ................................................................................................................. 10
VILLAGE PHASE (1873-1883) .................................................................................................................... 14
CIVIC PHASE (1884-1912) ......................................................................................................................... 16
PROGRESSIVE PHASE (1913-1929) ............................................................................................................ 25
NATIONALIZATION PHASE (1930-1945) .................................................................................................... 30
POSTWAR EXPANSION PHASE (1946-1970) ............................................................................................... 35
CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................................................ 45
BmLIOGRAPHY ....................................................................................................................................... 46
BOOKS AND PAMPHLETS ........................................................................................................................... 46
ARTICLES .................................................................................................................................................. 47
GOVERNMENT DOCUMENTS ...................................................................................................................... 48
UNPUBLISHED MATERIAL ......................................................................................................................... 48
NEWSPAPERS ............................................................................................................................................. 48
ENDNOTES ................................................................................................................................................. 49
Bozeman, Montana Historic Context pagel
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Project Background and Methodology
Methodology
This document was originally prepared in 1984, at the completion of a comprehensive
historic architectural inventory of Bozeman, Montana. The methodology for that project
is described below:
The Bozeman Historic Resource Survey was conducted in two phases. Phase I of the
report involved an intensive survey of the project area as determined by the Bozeman
Planning Office and the State Historic Preservation Office. The area covered most of the
original boundaries of the City of Bozeman and contained approximately 4,000
structures.
Volunteers from ten neighborhood groups within the study area inventoried each
structure using Montana Historical and Architectural Inventory Forms. Photographs were
taken of each structure and a photo log was kept.
Phase II of the survey involved an extensive literature and records search of materials
related to the City of Bozeman, the Gallatin Valley, and the project area. Tax cards at the
Appraiser's Office, land books, and plat maps in the Clerk and Recorder's Office were
examined to determine ownership for each property inventoried. Sanborn Insurance
Maps, tax appraisal cards, city directories, and sewer records were used to date the
structures and determine their historical occupancy and use. Historical literature,
government documents, and archival holdings (including cartographic and photographic
collections) ofthe Museum of the Rockies, Gallatin County Historical Society, Montana
State University, and the Montana Historical Society were examined in depth, as was the
Avant Courier newspaper.
Building research was limited because Sanborn maps did not cover all of the survey area,
and because land books consistently lacked records of early property ownership
necessary to determine original ownership of structures.
Data collected from both phases of the survey were used to evaluate the significance of
structures and potential historic districts in accordance with the National Register of
Historic Places criteria found in 36 CFR 60.6. These criteria, established by the U.S.
Secretary of the Interior, state that a property is eligible for listing on the National
Register if:
... the quality of significance in American history, architecture,
archaeology, and culture is present in districts, sites, buildings, structures,
Bozeman, Montana Historic Context page 2
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and objects of state and local importance that possess integrity of location,
design, setting, materials and workmanship, feeling and association, and:
a) that are associated with events that have made a significant contribution to the
broad patterns of our history; or
b) that are associated with the lives of persons significant in our past; or
c) that embody the distinctive characteristics of a type, period, or method of
construction, or that represent the work of a master, or that possess high artistic
value, or that represent a significant and distinguishable entity whose components
may lack individual distinction; or
d) that have yielded, or may be likely to yield, information in prehistory or history.
Each structure also was evaluated in terms of its contribution (or lack thereof) to a
potential historic district, based on the following classifications:
1. Primary: Properties of major historical and/or architectural significance and
independently eligible for the National Register of Historic Places;
2. Contributing: Properties that contribute to the character of a potential historic
district;
3. Neutral: Properties that have lost historic integrity and/or are of a neutral quality
and do not contribute to the character of a potential historic district;
4. Intrusive: Properties that have an intrusive quality within a potential historic
district.
A color-coded map was prepared reflecting these classifications and used in establishing
the historic districts in the project area.
Organization of the Report
This report attempts to explain the physical character of the city, especially its structures
(public, industrial, commercial, residential) in historical and architectural terms. It does
so (1) by tracing the development (particularly economic) that shaped the history of
Bozeman, (2) by discussing the physical growth of the city, particularly in terms of
structures and basic city improvements, and (3) by evaluating the architectural trends that
characterized the city's development. Political history is discussed to the extent necessary
to maintain a sense of historical continuity. Political, civic, and business leaders are
mentioned who have been particularly significant in shaping the development of the city.
In discussing specific structures, the report refers to historical structures that are still
standing by providing the structure's historical name and location.
Bozeman, Montana Histork Context page3
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2007-08 Additions to the Report
In 2007, the City of Bozeman contracted with Renewable Technologies, Inc. to edit the
original report and to expand the time period covered to 1970. The intent was to provide
additional background and content in advance of potential field inventories that would
record buildings from the 1950-1970 era. To accomplish this goal, a windshield survey
identified architectural examples from this period to illustrate major trends in residential,
commercial, and governmental buildings. In addition, some additional research was
conducted using Polk directories, city records, and secondary sources to provide a general
context for the postwar years.
Bozeman, Montana Histork Context page4
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Historical Introduction
The Gallatin Valley Before Settlement
The Gallatin Valley, with its fertile soil and abundant water, attracted and sustained
native people for thousands of years. Rings of stones from tipis show that American
Indians lived at least seasonally in the valley. Many others, from tribes throughout a
large region, came during the summer months to gather a variety of native plants, fruits,
fish, and game. They also traveled through the valley on well-worn trails to hunt buffalo
on the plains. By the early nineteenth century, the Indians were joined by non-native
travelers who stayed for varying lengths of time in the Gallatin Valley. In 1805 members
of the Corps of Discovery, led by captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, made
their way to the headwaters of the Missouri River at the confluence of the Madison,
Jefferson and Gallatin rivers, the present location of the Missouri Headwaters State Park.
On the return trip east in 1806, Clark's party camped near present-day Bozeman. Over
the next few decades, native and non-native people continued to visit and utilize the
valley, especially as their travels led them to use Bozeman Pass as a gateway to the
Missouri River Basin. 1
Permanent settlements took longer to establish and it was not until the gold discoveries in
nearby Bannack and Virginia City during the early 1860s that the Gallatin Valley began
to experience significant change. At that time, a few enterprising settlers saw the
agricultural potential of the valley to raise food supplies for the booming mining
communities. The first town, Gallatin City, was located just north of the Gallatin River,
on the west bank of the combined Madison and Jefferson rivers. The founders,
speculators who had met earlier in Bannack, located the townsite in November 1862.
Within a few months, the town boasted dozens of cabins built to attract permanent
residents. This scheme failed and when the initial townsite location proved
unsatisfactory, residents relocated to the east bank by early 1865. Instrumental in this
move were James B. Campbell and his two sons-in-law, James Gallagher and Frank J.
Dunbar. After the creation of Gallatin County in 1865, Gallatin City served as the county
seat until Bozeman gained the honor two years later. 2
John Bozeman was one of the many disappointed miners who failed to find fortune in the
first Montana gold strikes. A Georgian by birth, Bozeman had left his farm and family to
strike it rich in the West. When mining proved unprofitable, Bozeman turned to guiding
emigrant trains to the gold fields. Unlike the experienced Jim Bridger, who guided
newcomers through the Gallatin Valley by skirting Indian lands, Bozeman chose a route
that passed through Sioux territory. It ran along the east side of the Big Hom Mountains,
over the plains and west through Bozeman Pass, dropping into the Gallatin Valley and on
southwest to Bannack. Bozeman's route was shorter that the boat trip up the Missouri
River to Fort Benton or the overland trip to Fort Hall, Idaho, but it also was more
dangerous. He soon realized that more gold lay in the fertile soil of the Gallatin Valley
Bozeman, Montana Historic Context pageS
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than in either mining or guiding. After he met William J. Beall and Daniel E. Rouse in
Virginia City in 1863, the three men decided to lay out a townsite in the Gallatin Valley.
By then, Beall and Rouse had spent an unsuccessful year near Gallatin City trying to farm
the poor soil. Bozeman agreed to return the following spring with another emigrant train.
The new townsite, in the more fertile eastern end of the Gallatin Valley, would become
Bozeman, Montana. 3
Bozeman's Urban Development
William J. Beall and Daniel E. Rouse laid out a townsite in 1864 with Main Street as the
major east-west axis and Rouse and Bozeman avenues as the north-south cross streets.
Beall's first claim, including his part of the townsite, was 160 acres and extended one
mile west and one-fourth mile north, primarily west of the Bozeman Avenue line.
William H. Tracy soon joined Beall as a partner and together they staked out another
claim west of Beall's original 160 acres. After the partnership dissolved, Beall kept the
north half and subsequently divided the land into three additions bearing his name.
Rouse also claimed 160 acres east of Bozeman A venue. Beall and Rouse each
constructed a log cabin that summer. William W. Alderson and his brother John arrived
in mid-July and claimed land south ofthe original townsite.
In 1870, W. W. DeLacy surveyed the townsite which was then formally platted, as was
Rouse's First Addition adjacent to the east of the townsite. The original townsite had
declared Main Street to be one hundred feet wide while the width of all other streets was
set at sixty feet. Since DeLacy found that some Main Street buildings were over the line,
Main Street was redrawn at ninety-three feet. The townsite covered forty acres and
adjoining landowners agreed to donate enough ground for streets and alleys to "preserve
the symmetry and uniformity of the town."
Developers in the early 1870s, before the economic depression set in later in the decade,
optimistically filed new plats which expanded mostly to the higher and drier ground on
the southeast. In 1871 John Guy, ofthe Guy House hotel, filed Guy's Addition and one
year later filed Guy's Second Addition, both to the south and east of Bozeman Avenue.
That same year, William H. Tracy platted Tracy's First Addition to the west and Colonel
Black filed and platted his addition, mostly in one-acre tracts. W. W. Alderson platted
Alderson's Addition in 1873 on part ofhis homestead claim adjacent to the south of the
original townsite and Nelson Story filed to the west.
Developers believed that the planned construction of the Northern Pacific Railway
through the valley would bring prosperity, so they began making numerous additions to
Bozeman on land to the southeast and southwest of the original townsite. Daniel Rouse
platted a second addition adjacent to his first on the south and a third to the west; Frank
Harper, the blacksmith, platted a small addition in the southeast; Joseph M. Lindley and
John Guy made their addition in fifty-foot lots, extending South Bozeman Avenue "into
an area that was formerly a strawberry garden." As editor of the Avant Courier, William
Alderson touted his new Fairview Addition as the fashionable place to live and made
Bozeman, Montana Historic Context page6
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Central (Willson) A venue extra generous in width. Charles Hoffman, later a state senator,
platted Hoffman's Addition in the name of his wife, Elizabeth Hoffman. Finally, Park
Addition, the most westerly of the additions, included two eighty-acre tracts, one owned
by Nelson Story and the other by Walter Cooper and JohnS. Dickerson, a newspaperman
from the St. Paul Pioneer Press. Two strips of land were taken from the tracts and set
aside for a park, later called Cooper Park. Plans for the park included "shade trees,
gravelled walks and drives, and in the center a lake fed by the waters of the West
Gallatin."
Bozeman expanded with additions to the north for the first time in anticipation of the
arrival of the railroad with its depot. The Northern Pacific Addition, aptly named, was
bisected by the railroad line. Before the addition was formally platted, an avenue eighty
feet wide was laid out diagonally, leading directly to the proposed railroad depot site
from Main Street. This addition was located in the swampy northeast area that earlier
residents had avoided. It was a long time in developing and even today is used primarily
for industrial sites. The lure of the depot could not lessen the mire of mud and swamp.
Other additions on the north side of Main Street included Babcock and Davis, Beall's to
the northeast, and Tracy's Second and Third to the northwest.
Bozeman boosters believed that their city might have a chance to become the site for
Montana's state capital. This led to the platting of the aptly named Capitol Hill addition
south of the Park Addition in 1890, two years prior to the capital election. That same
year, investors primarily from Butte platted the Butte Addition south of the Fairview
Addition. By 1890, then, all additions in the survey area had been formally platted, with
the exception of Karp's and Violet's additions in the northwest comer, both platted in the
1940s.
Bozeman, Montana Histork Context page7
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Phases of Historical and Architectural Development
Introduction
From 1864 to 1970, Bozeman's architecture and urban development underwent a series of
transformations. Certain growth patterns were established well before the turn of the
century, influenced by available materials, prevailing technology, and custom. When
viewed within an historical context, these changes and those which followed represent
Bozeman's shifting patterns of social, economic, and cultural relationships with local,
regional, and national events and conditions.
For purposes of examining Bozeman's architectural resources within their historical
context, the community's development is presented here in six phases: the Townsite
Phase, Village Phase, Civic Phase, Progressive Phase, Nationalization Phase, and
Postwar Expansion Phase. The definitions of these phases as they pertain to Bozeman
follow.
Townsite Phase (1864-1872): Bozeman's Townsite Phase may be defined as the period
immediately following the origination of the townsite, brought on by the need for a
supply center for the booming new mining camps of Montana Territory. The period is
characterized by the initial development of agricultural and timber resources, which
promised stability for the settlement in light of uncertainties associated with
transportation and supply routes through Indian territory. Although a few architecturally
precocious structures were built during the Townsite Phase, most buildings were
constructed of simple materials and by simple methods; log and frame buildings
predominated. Commercial and industrial structures commanded attention and
manpower, thus establishing early the importance of commerce and agricultural
manufacturing to the future of the community.
Vdlage Phase (1873-1883): The Village Phase represented for Bozeman the beginnings
of urbanization and culminated in the arrival of the transcontinental railroad and
incorporation of the City of Bozeman. The economic base became secure enough to
sustain more permanent structures, including churches, schools, and public buildings.
While many period commercial buildings were constructed ofbrick, often in the
Italianate style, industrial buildings continued to use wood, and distinctive frame
residences of the Carpenter Gothic tradition were prevalent. Sawn ornament in the
Carpenter Gothic mode was utilized as an integrative element in rural vernacular house
forms. The commercial and industrial potential of Bozeman and the surrounding area
emerged as sufficient for continued growth.
Civic Phase (1884-1912): The Civic Phase may be defined as a period of civic coming
of age, appropriately inaugurated by incorporation of the City of Bozeman and by the
arrival of the Northern Pacific Railroad. For Bozeman, it meant the attainment of social
Bozeman, Montana Historic Context page8
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and economic diversity in the form of the Agricultural College, improved transportation
networks, expanded city services and public utilities, and fledgling industries related to
agricultural and mineral resources. Victorian Revival architecture built during the Civic
Phase encompassed Victorian Gothic, Romanesque Revival, Ruskinian Gothic, Queen
Anne, and Colonial Revival. Eclecticism and individualism characterized both
commercial and residential architecture, even when house pattern books were the source
of designs. A tension developed between diversity and standardization in the nation's
growing industrial culture, and this had its analogies in Bozeman's built environment.
Progressive Phase (1913-1929): Bozeman's Progressive Phase was a period of
transformation in relation to emerging twentieth century business and professional
values. Growth continued steadily as before, but the nature of growth distinguished the
Progressive Phase from earlier periods. City governance and politics were transformed by
adoption of the Commission-Manager form of government. The Agricultural College
increasingly attracted a population which, in accord with national trends, was
sympathetic to efficiency and modernization in government as well as in other sectors,
such as business and agriculture. Other twentieth century phenomena, especially the
increase in automobiles and associated tourism, changed the face of Bozeman. Alteration
of older structures was favored over new construction in many instances, and newer
buildings, in Arts and Crafts or Mission styles, often stood apart from established forms.
Civic organizations mediated social and economic change as Bozeman weathered
fluctuations in conditions prior, during and following World War I.
Nationalization Phase (1930-1945): The Nationalization Phase represents Bozeman's
emergence into the national milieu associated with the Great Depression, the New Deal,
and World War II. The influence of the Agricultural College in the state's rural counties
increased dramatically, leading to expansion of all three phases ofthe institution:
research, instruction, and extension. Military science and engineering vied with
agriculture and other traditional concerns of the land grant college as war and economic
transformation made their mark on the institution. New forms of communication and
entertainment, such as radio and the "talkies," altered social patterns in Bozeman, just as
the New Deal and World War II altered economic, political, administrative, and cultural
patterns. Idealization of national industrial culture took architectural form in Art Deco
and Moderne styles based on industrial design. Simultaneously, the contrast between
such urban ideals and the natural setting of Bozeman, enhanced the community's appeal
to residents and visitors alike.
Postwar Expansion Phase (1946-1970): Following the end of World War II, Bozeman
entered the Postwar Expansion Phase which was characterized by growth as the
population increased and the city limits pushed outward. The impetus for this expansion
was the ubiquitous automobile, which encouraged the outward spread from the city
center. Commercial development stretched from the downtown center along Main Street
westward past 191h Avenue and eastward to the new interstate highway. It also spread
northward along North ih Avenue. Residential developments expanded to new areas
around the periphery of the city. The increasing dependence on the automobile was
reflected in new architectural styles, from Ranch houses, with their attached garages, to
Bozeman, Montana Historic Context page9
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shopping centers surrounded by parking lots. Montana State College expanded not only
its student body and its campus but also its status during the postwar years. It was
designated Montana State University in 1965.
Townsite Phase (1864-1872)
The Upper East Gallatin Claim Association met for the first time on August 9, 1864, at
the settlement then known as Jacob's Crossing. At that meeting, the men renamed the
new town and associated district Bozeman, defined the district boundaries, and
established a process for making and recording claims. Within a short time, the matter of
shelter for the harsh Montana winter became a pressing concern. To ensure building,
fencing, and fuel supplies for the settlers, the surrounding timber stands were designated
common property for free use by all. 4
The small log cabins of William J. Beall and Daniel E. Rouse were the first to be built
and Beall, a builder, offered his assistance to those settlers who may have lacked his skill
or knowledge of log construction. The dwellings constructed were serviceable single-
bay, gable-roofed cabins with a limited number of door or window openings. Variations
included the sawn-wood floor of the F. F. Fridley cabin, and the double cabin of a
modified dog-trot style, built by the Mexican settler, Joseph Merraville, and his wife, a
Sioux Indian. A portion of this structure was pressed into use as a schoolhouse two years
later.5
Greater attention and labor were given to the commercial structures which shared Main
Street with many of the dozen or fewer residences. In this earliest state of town
development, commercial buildings were distinguished from residential by their use of
hewn logs, upper stories, or vertical board and batten siding in the gable ends. The most
noteworthy among these was a one-and-one-half story hotel situated on the northwest
comer of Bozeman A venue and Main Street. Stafford and Rice built the gable-roofed
structure using rough-hewn, square-notched logs. When the interior was still unfinished,
the large, open room served as the site for the 1864 Christmas Eve "grand ball." A
month later, when W. W. Alderson officiated at Stafford's wedding to Sallie Smith, it was
hailed as the first marriage ceremony in the county. The building's symbolic significance
was further confirmed by its role as a shelter for women and children during an Indian
scare the following July; it was purchased subsequently by the Gallatin Masonic Lodge
No.6. The Alderson home, built in 1865-1866 on the Alderson homestead south of the
townsite, represents a carry-over of the Stafford and Rice building's features into
domestic log structures in Bozeman. The one-and-one-half story house was built of hewn
logs and appears to have been a slightly scaled down version of the Stafford and Rice
building.6
Construction methods during Bozeman's first year for industrial buildings are not
documented as well as those for residential and commercial structures. Apparently the
methods at hand, however, were adequate for Thomas Cover and Perry McAdow, who
lost no time in constructing Bozeman's first commercial flour and grist mill. Work began
Bozeman, Montana Historic Context pagelO
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in the fall of 1864, and the mill was in operation by the following October. An eight-
horsepower endless apron threshing machine operated in conjunction with the mill, at a
minimum charge of$50.00 per farmer. The mill continued in operation until1883.7
Although timber claims were disallowed by the Upper East Gallatin Claim Association,
Zachariah Sales managed to file a homestead claim for timbered land on the Gallatin
River, where water power provided excellent conditions for a sawmill operation. Having
arrived on John Bozeman's wagon train, Sales established his sawmill in time to
influence the town's almost immediate preference for wood frame construction over log.
The demand for lumber was such that within the next five years, Sales had at least two
competitors. The naming of Salesville in 1883 was an acknowledgement of local
development in conjunction with Sales' lumber operations. (The area has been known as
Gallatin Gateway since 1927l
Log cabins and occasional tents continued to provide temporary shelter throughout most
ofBozeman's Townsite Phase. Nonetheless, frame construction began to predominate
relatively early, and existing log structures were often sheathed in horizontal clapboard or
weatherboard siding, with some use of vertical board and battens. Commercial structures
were provided with false fronts to resemble their frame-constructed neighbors. Bracketed
cornices with a Victorian Italianate vernacular flavor, as seen in Spieth and Krug's first
brewery (1867), were favored in false front facades, whereas gabled frame buildings
showed a preference for Greek Revival. The hotel known as Guy House is an example of
that tendency, and a residential equivalent is the Nelson Story house, built c. 1869.
Although the building has been moved and altered, it is the best documented of the
known residential structures which remain from Bozeman's Townsite Phase. Both the
two-story Guy House (later renamed the Northern Pacific) and the one-level Story house
featured rectangular gable-ended plans, two corbeled brick chimneys situated at the ends,
double-hung six-over-six windows, painted white horizontal clapboard or weatherboard
siding, shallow-pitched gable roofs with axes parallel to the street, and one-story entry
porticos with paneled entrances and sidelights. The top of the entry portico of Guy House
doubled as a balcony and was painted with the name of the hotel. A rear addition to the
Story house formed an overall L-shaped plan. The more self-consciously Greek Revival
facade of Guy House is characteristically symmetrical, with central entrances at both
levels flanked by two windows on either side, for a total of eight windows. The central
entrance of the Story house, however, is off-center, and its two flanking shuttered
windows are evenly spaced in spite oftheir lack of symmetry. Gothic Revival or
"Carpenter Gothic" sawn ornament on the comer supports of the entry further mark the
structure as a vernacular blend of divergent traditions. 9
John Bozeman's murder in 1867 sparked a general panic among settlers in Montana
Territory. Newspapers widely reported that he had been killed by Blackfeet Indians
although many suspected his traveling companion, Thomas Cover. Whoever the culprit
was, his death led to the establishment ofF ort Ellis, three miles east of Bozeman. The
original buildings reportedly were constructed of logs, sod, and whipsawn lumber.
George Flanders provided materials for the fort's expansion in 1873 from his Bear Creek
sawmill. The Fort Ellis buildings included a stockade built in 1868 and dismantled soon
Bozeman, Montana Historic Context pagell
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afterward. At its height, the fort accommodated five companies of one hundred soldiers
each.10
In their travels through the Gallatin Valley in 1805-06, explorers Lewis and Clark had
noted the positive attributes of the area for settlement. Among their comments were the
observations that "the earth appears as though it would make good brick" and that "all the
materials ... for an establishment of ... brick or stone ... are immediately at the spot."11
The availability of these materials facilitated construction of foundations and chimneys as
well as a few brick commercial structures as early as the late 1860s. The Metropolitan
Hotel, later called the Laclede Hotel, was among the first of these predominately
Italianate Commercial brick blocks to be erected on Main Street. The offset entrance and
two double windows featured arched transoms. The double entrances on three upper
stories had segmental relieving arches with keystones, and opened onto a facade-width
balustraded wooden balcony. A corbeled parapet was extended in height to accommodate
the large letters of the hotel's name, accentuating the verticality of the facade. The
Metropolitan had an affinity, in style and scale, with the neighboring false-fronted
structures.12
The "Cooper Block," the greater portion of which still stands as the oldest surviving
business block in Bozeman, dominated Main Street in the decade following its
construction in 1872. The substantial quality of the building, with its eleven-bay facade
(of which seven remain), suited it to the housing of Walter Cooper's Armory, among
other businesses. An architect from St. Joseph, Missouri, designed the structure for
Colonel Leander M. Black, owner of one of the businesses in the building, using an
Italianate Commercial mode ofVictorian vernacular. Black was the developer of Black's
Addition, which had recently opened for settlement. 13
In retrospect, it appears that many of the determined and enterprising early settlers never
doubted that Bozeman would become a permanent settlement. Several among them had
ample capital and/or adequate intermittent commercial success to weather the first few
years of halting economic development. Agricultural manufacturing was established
immediately, along with commercial concerns, which prospered with the help of
government contracts associated with Fort Ellis. Additional settlers were attracted in the
process of hosting survey parties temporarily headquartered at Fort Ellis, where West
Point fashions and manners were approximated, frontier-style. The designation of
Yellowstone National Park in 1872 brought the promise of renown to the region,
bolstering the town's developers as they contended with setbacks associated with
stabilizing the population of the gold camps, closing military forts along the Bozeman
Road, and financial hardships of the economically depressed years of the 1870s.
Exploration of the region's resources during the Townsite Phase yielded discoveries of
Rocky Canyon's construction-quality sandstone deposits and coke-producing coal
preserves. At the same time, entrepreneurs harnessed the abundant water supplies for
several lumber mills, flour mills, and irrigation projects.14
Bozeman, Montana Historic Context page12
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In the social and cultural realm, efforts also began early with whatever resources were at
hand. The Townsite Phase saw the building of a Methodist Episcopal Church in 1866-
1867, with subscriptions in the amount of$2,500. Prior to completion of the frame
structure, services and Sunday School were held in the Masonic building (the Stafford
and Rice log building, described above). It was common for early buildings to have
multiple uses, and the new church was thereafter utilized as a school and a district
courtroom. Interior plastering and furnishing was completed in the winter following the
initial building effort.15
The first school term was held in the rear of the Fitz log store in 1865-1866, the second
term in a log residence on Main Street, and the third term in the Merravilles' double log
structure. By 1868, a tax of five mills provided public funding for education, which had
previously depended on parental contributions. W. J. Beall constructed the schoolhouse
at a cost of$500. The structure was in use only for upper grades by 1873, and lower
grades were conducted once more in a log structure, a house on Babcock Street near
Black A venue. It took several more years before the first brick schoolhouse was built.
Public schools also competed with private ones. For instance, in 1872, Rev. Lyman B.
Crittendon and his daughter, Mary, rented space in the Good Templar Hall for the
Bozeman Academy.16
In addition to schools, other institutions enhanced Bozeman's social and cultural realm.
By 1872, a "Young Men's Library Association" utilized space in the upper level of
Alward's drug store. The earliest newspaper, the Pick and Plow, began publication on
December 31, 1869, financed by proceeds from a Christmas Eve ball. It continued in
print for eighteen months. The Avant Courier fared better, publishing from September
1871 until it merged with the Gallatin County Republican in 1904 to become the
B C . 17 ozeman ouner.
A telegraph line was installed in 1871 between Bozeman and Helena, and the town's first
bank, the First National Bank of Bozeman, was established in August 1872. Fraternal
organizations chartered during the Townsite Phase include the Gallatin Lodge No.6, H. F.
& A.M. (1866); Bozeman Lodge No.18, A. F & A.M. (1872); and Western Star Lodge
No.4, Independent Order of Odd Fellows (1872).18
An engraving of Bozeman in 1872 shows a cluster of simple gabled structures along
Main Street with a few two-story buildings, most of which have false fronts. Some of
these commercial buildings have flat or shed roofs, but most are gabled behind their false
facades. A common feature is a balcony above the front entrance. The dwellings are,
without exception, one-story, single-bay gabled structures. Some are log, but most
appear to be frame or covered with wood siding. One or two interior chimneys rise from
most of the roofs. Saltbox or cross-gabled additions appear on a few of the homes. The
Cooper Block is not present, but the Laclede Hotel is prominent, marked by a high-flying
flag.19
Bozeman, Montana Historic Context page13
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Village Phase (1873-1883)
The years of early settlement, during which Bozeman had grown to a town of
approximately 800 residents, were followed by a decade of continued growth and rising
expectations. The gains represented by the Cooper Block on Main Street were difficult to
live up to during the depressed 1870s. The aggressive actions of the Yellowstone Wagon
Road and Prospecting Expedition, however, revealed a group of entrepreneurs who were
not about to see the promise ofBozeman wither away. With the defeat of regional Indian
tribes and the subsequent reopening of travel routes in the late 1870s, attention turned
once more to Main Street. Aspirations focused on the transcontinental Northern Pacific
Railroad and its routing through Bozeman. 20
In the interim of the 1870s, religious and educational institutions made modest gains. A
new brick Methodist Episcopal Church, at the comer of Olive and Willson, was built in
1873. The Presbyterians purchased Good Templar Hall, which served the congregation
until construction of a decorative Carpenter Gothic church in 1879. The Episcopalians
also built a small church c. 1875, later replaced by St. James Episcopal Church in 1890-
1891. The outgrown public school building was replaced in 1877 by a brick schoolhouse,
designed by W. J. Beall and constructed under the supervision of Colonel Chesnut.
Referred to for many years as the West Side School, the structure was the first of three
important public buildings constructed during the later years of the Village Phase. The
expenditure of $15,000 for the schoolhouse represented nearly one-third of the total
improvements and building costs for 1879. A detailed description ofthe "Graded School
Building" appeared in the 1879 Almanac, and the accompanying illustration showed the
Italian Villa-like structure with arched windows and a tower adorned with a concave
mansard roof borrowed from Second Empire architecture.21
The remaining two public buildings of the caliber of the West Side School were the East
Side School (1883) and the County Courthouse (1880), both designed by Byron Vreeland
in association with Herman Kemna. Vreeland's designs both followed Second Empire
form in utilizing the straight-sided mansard roof, prominent cornice, and the basic plan of
a symmetrical square block with a central pavilion projecting to the front. The pavilion
on the courthouse departed from Second Empire by projecting skyward in a square tower
with a domical roof topped by an elongated flagpole-finial. Vreeland took his eclecticism
further in the East Side School, where the pavilion became a projecting gable decorated
in its gable end with geometrical motifs strongly resembling Vreeland's Moorish Revival
ornament on Smith's Palace Saloon (1882) on Main Street.22
Noteworthy commercial buildings of this phase include the Carpenter Gothic
boardinghouse, Frazier House (1881), which followed residential structures stylistically;
Eastman House, a hotel which was originally built as a residence; and several brick
blocks on Main Street. The above-mentioned Palace Saloon by Vreeland still remains
from this 1880-1883 building spurt, which also included the Tivoli Saloon (no longer
standing), Achilles Lamme's three brick business blocks, the Avant Courier building
(partially altered), the Masonic Lodge (partially altered), and a brick block for Spieth &
Krug Bozeman Brewery (replacing a frame structure). The prevalent vernacular Victorian
Bozeman, Montana Historic Context pageU
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Commercial mode of building shows a range, in these buildings, from Ruskinian Gothic
with Moorish elements (Palace Saloon) to Italianate (Spieth & Krug) to eclectic
combinations which defy even these terminological approximations. The structures as a
group may be described as attached, two-story, symmetrical blocks with prominent
cornices and articulated window heads, borrowing from several Revival styles,
predominantly Italianate. Those that remain standing constitute essential elements of
Bozeman's historic commercial architectural resources.
Generic industrial and corporate buildings constructed in this period include two frame
structures which were later replaced by brick buildings. The 1882 Story Mill was a large
gabled building with a prominent clerestory. The structure is believed to have been
among those that burned at the tum of the century. The second building in this category
was the Northern Pacific depot which, for all the glory associated with the arrival of the
railroad, was a modest frame structure. It was described as "squat, squalid and stuffy" on
the occasion of its replacement in 1891 by a hipped one-story, horizontal central block
with a projecting side wing, both bays having deep overhanging eaves. 23
In residential architecture, some vernacular house forms, such as the log cabin, persisted.
The McDonald !-house on South Tracy, built ca.1872-1873, represents a regional form
transplanted from the mid-Atlantic and Midwestern states. One of the oldest existing
residences in Bozeman, the structure is just one room deep. Its symmetrical design is
gable-ended with a central interior brick chimney. The walls are sheathed in drop-lap
siding with comer boards. The lack of even a single two-story residence on the 1872
birds-eye view of Bozeman suggests that this house was one of the first two-story homes
to be built.
The Upright-and-Wing farmhouse form appeared in the early 1870s as well and these,
unlike the log cabin or !-house, were often dressed up in Carpenter Gothic ornamentation
such as rooftop cresting and finials, balustraded entries, and polygonal bays with paneled
window aprons. Variations of these structures include theW. W. Alderson house (1873),
the Sam Lewis frame house at 308 South Bozeman A venue (later veneered in brick), and
the Walter Cooper home.
In addition to the dressed-up Upright-and-Wing dwelling, the symmetrical one-and-one-
half or two-story central cross-gabled "Gothic Cottage" house form was an important
Village Phase manifestation of the Carpenter Gothic builders' tradition. Although few
were built in the 1870s, several appeared from 1880-1883, only to fall from favor almost
immediately thereafter. Some excellent surviving examples of the simple but jewel-like
Gothic Cottage dwelling from this period include the J. V. Hinchman house (401 South
Willson Avenue, 1883), the George Nichols house (301 South Black Avenue, 1880), and
theW. J. Brandenburg house (122 West Lamme Street, 1883). Brandenburg was a
builder who may be responsible for the others as well as his own house, which, although
its facade reads as a central cross-gabled Gothic Cottage, is actually an Upright-and-
Wing plan. The hand-sawn and carved ornament of the Brandenburg house is still in
excellent condition.
Bozeman, Montana Historic Context page15
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Variations on these standard Carpenter Gothic structures include the above-mentioned
Frazier house (1881 ), with its multiple gables rising from two gable-ended houses with
triple-gable facades placed together to take full advantage of its comer orientation.
Another variation is the Daniel Rouse home, a brick version of the central cross-gabled
frame structures described above. This house, though somewhat altered, still stands at
506 East Babcock. Without exception, these examples of the Gothic Cottage and its
variations are located on comer lots, reflecting their early placement and their relative
value as objects of community admiration.
Bozeman achieved new status in 1883 with the completion ofthe Northern Pacific
transcontinental route as well as the city's triumphant incorporation. These events
brought about a new approach to residential building among the city's wealthy class.
Perhaps anticipating a more cosmopolitan life following the arrival of the railroad, those
with adequate financial resources sought residential property on the expansive Central
A venue, where their social status could be displayed in more current architectural taste.
An early example is Matt Alderson's large residence (1882), later the Chisholm home, a
two-story, three-bay brick house with a bracketed, straight-sided mansard roof and
Revival details, including Italianate and Classical. This new location along Central
Avenue, at the close ofthe Village Phase, began a tradition which would determine, in
part, the residential character of the Civic Phase in Bozeman. Despite this trend, some of
Bozeman's financially successful families chose sites for grand homes closer to Main
Street or to their business enterprises. These included the 1882 Tracy residence on
Mendenhall Street; the J. H. Taylor residence, which became Eastman House; the 1887
Nelson Story "mansion" on Main Street; and the 1895 Lehrkind "mansion" on North
Wallace A venue.
Civic Phase (1884-1912)
Bozeman's new status as an incorporated city brought numerous immediate efforts at
civic refinement, which transformed the community as it moved toward economic and
demographic stabilization. Montana's attainment of statehood in 1889 and Bozeman's
own bid for the state capital in the early 1890s further stimulated growth. The city
organized a fire department, purchased a 1 ,377-volume library, and, by 1890, constructed
a city hall that housed these and other services, including an opera house auditorium.
Rail connections bolstered expectations of prosperity among merchants and
manufacturers, providing access to markets in Butte and Anaconda as well as Montana's
military installations. A power plant was installed at the old McAdow mill ca. 1886-
1887, leading to electric street lighting by 1891 and electric streetcar service the
following year. In 1898, the city purchased the existing waterworks, which included
twenty-two miles of water mains by 1908. Local interests resumed the Minneapolis-
owned Bozeman Light and Railroad Company, which had begun as a locally-owned
effort in the 1880s. The Bozeman and Butte Short Line connected nearby coke operations
to the smelters where the coke was needed, and after a prolonged strike of coal miners in
1886, Bozeman interests bought out the unpopular Northern Pacific Coal Company, only
to transfer ownership to a subsidiary of the Anaconda Copper Mining Company in 1904.
Bozeman, Montana Historic Context page16
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Telephone service was available from 1884 to 1889, and then continuously from 1896 on.
The Gallatin Valley Electric Railway incorporated in 1908 and within a year, Bozeman
offered the state's only interurban service. New activity in the brewing, lumber, and flour
mill industries, as well as the establishment of a federal fish hatchery, contributed to
economic stability.24
The population of the city and the county made significant gains, aided by the growth of
rural towns and communities, and nearby company towns such as Chestnut, Storrs and
Trident. The Manhattan Malting Company and the West Gallatin Irrigation Company
stimulated rural population growth in 1891 with the introduction of Dutch farmers to
Gallatin County. The Holland Settlement raised barley crops for the company through
1916. As Fort Ellis and other military markets dried up, Bozeman merchants depended
increasingly on the farm population for a market for goods and services, particularly
agricultural implements which were sold by five dealers in 1910-1911. During the Civic
Phase, the mechanization of farming led to a new balance for Bozeman's economy,
favoring agricultural products, farm machinery supply, and banking interests. Not all the
farmers were satisfied with the situation, however, as demonstrated by the organization of
the "Gallatin County Farmer's Alliance" in 1904. This group was associated with the
American Society of Equity, a forerunner of the radical Nonpartisan League. By 1908,
the Alliance was marketing its own crops and operating two elevators (one in Bozeman
and the other in Belgrade) as well as an office and a warehouse. This effort benefited its
farmer members apparently without affecting the impressive prosperity of the banking
interests, who were said not even to have felt the Panic of 1907.25
The financial sector of Bozeman's economy made an impact on building activity as well,
with the establishment ofthe Pioneer Building and Loan in 1888. The entrepreneurs,
bankers, realtors, and other businessmen associated with this corporation established their
enterprise at an opportune time for capitalizing on inexpensive planed lumber, shipped by
rail. These developments, however spelled the decline of local interests, such as George
Flander's planing mill and sash factory at Middle Creek, an operation which had
produced 10,000 board feet of lumber and 10,000 shingles per day for many years. The
combined reduction of material costs and availability of credit enabled boosters to
announce in 1908, "No other city in the northwest can boast so large a proportion of
homes owned by their occupants as Bozeman. "26
Two local firms produced a variety of building materials. The Story Iron Works
employed seven workers in 1908. The Bozeman Manufacturing Company, with fifteen
workers that year, advertised "bed-springs, showcases, store fronts, and all kinds ofhouse
furnishings: also doors, sash and window frames ... Portable Houses ... Glass Work of
All Kinds-Structural Steel and Iron." E. E. Machemer was listed variously as manager
and proprietor.27
The need for approval of credit applications for home ownership through Pioneer
Building and Loan would amount to a screening process to ensure, to some degree, that
Bozeman attracted only a certain type of population. The importance of the image of
Bozeman as a stable, staid city was indicated by a pronouncement in 1908 that "There are
Bozeman, Montana Historic Context page17
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few millionaires in Gallatin County, and fewer paupers, and that disorderly element that
is so conspicuous a feature of some Western communities is lacking here."28
Bozeman's residential architecture of the Civic Phase grew increasingly staid and
respectable as well. This was due, in part, to the cultivation of that image by the town's
promoters, and also in part to a standardizing trend associated with such institutions as
the Pioneer Building and Loan, which continued to operate until1958. Screening of
credit applications was accompanied by screening of building plans. Each had to be
approved and hence, to some degree, regulated.
City boosters had allies among reformers in Bozeman, as elsewhere, although the alliance
appears to have taken many years-and some compromising-to develop in Bozeman.
The organization ofthe Women's Christian Temperance Union in 1884, as well as the
establishment of additional religious denominations, may be a measure of intensified
reform efforts attending the city's incorporation. By 1885, the Methodist Episcopal,
Presbyterian, and Episcopal denominations were joined by the Baptist, Catholic, and
Methodist Episcopal Church South. Although the Baptist and Catholic churches were
located near Main Street or South Willson A venue, the Methodist Episcopal Church
South was constructed on Ingersoll (later renamed Church Street), the route to the
Northern Pacific Depot and a fashionable street at the time. The proximity of this church
and the East Side School to Chinatown and the Red Light District along Mendenhall
Street may have helped fuel later reform efforts of religious and educational leaders.
Despite these efforts, Chinese laundries remained a fixture in Bozeman for decades.
There were three such businesses identified in both the 1910-11 and 1922 Polk
directories. One, the Loy Laundry started by Sam Loy, first appeared in 1910 at 102
North Black Avenue. It then moved to 105 South Willson Avenue where it remained in
business at least through 1950?9
By 1906, the City Commission followed the lead of municipal reformers in Butte and
Helena and addressed the issue oflaw enforcement burdens associated with Bozeman's
sixteen saloons. There was disagreement about whether to regulate the "evil" by
restriction to a quota or by limiting saloons to a concentrated section of the downtown
business district. Despite the argument over methods, the national climate favoring social
reform had clearly begun to affect Bozeman. Civic leaders concluded, twenty-two years
after organization of the local chapter of the WCTU, that "Legislative bodies as well as
municipal councils everywhere recognize the saloon as an evil-an irrepressible evil,
perhaps, but an evil, nevertheless, existing only by indulgence or sufferance, to be
regulated, restricted, or, in aggravated cases, to be suppressed by law or city ordinance."30
A similar compromise with worldliness may be observed by comparing Bozeman's
church architecture of the late 1870s and early 1880s with that of the following two
decades. The Gothic piety ofthe 1879 Presbyterian Church (where WCTU meetings
were held on alternate Thursday afternoons) and the simple, almost austere architectural
forms of the frame Holy Rosary Catholic Church and the brick Methodist Episcopal
Church South, contrast sharply with the grander styles of St. James Episcopal (1890-
Bozeman, Montana Historic Context page18
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1891) and the second Holy Rosary Catholic Church (1907-1908). St. James was designed
by George Hancock, the architect from Fargo, North Dakota, who designed the Bozeman
Hotel. Built of grey sandstone quarried from Rocky Canyon, the church exemplifies the
late nineteenth century phase of Gothic Revival known as Victorian Gothic. It features a
tall spire, broad, steeply-pitched roof, and rough textured surfaces. The church is still
standing at 5 West 01 ive. Holy Rosary Church was constructed of Hebron granite brick
with sandstone sills, slate roof, and Munich stained glass. The Romanesque Revival style
is a twentieth century Late Victorian church building mode. The church still stands at 220
West Main, although its original facade is obscured by an enclosed entrance vestibule.
After Montana achieved statehood in 1889, its new status seemed to provide an impetus
to building of every variety. Residual vernacular forms or builders' traditions quickly fell
out of favor in house and church construction, as did earlier versions of Victorian
commercial architecture such as Italianate, and civic or residential styles such as Italian
Villa or Second Empire. In this way, examples ofthese buildings from the 1880s were
likely to become one-of-a-kind relics of a past age, almost overnight. There are few traces
ofthe grand Nelson Story Second Empire mansion (once located on Main Street), the
Tracy house (once on Mendenhall Street), the East Side and West Side schools, the
Vreeland Courthouse, and the "Castle" (once located on North Church Avenue). The
scaled-down Lycan house on Lamme Street, with its mansard roof, remains as a builder's
modest tribute to Second Empire. In a similar way, the Matt Alderson-Chisholm house
salutes this period, but little else remains of these styles.
Instead of the formal Second Empire, Italianate Commercial, and Italian Villa styles,
Bozeman began to embrace the picturesque effects of Queen Anne, eventually
encompassing Classical and Colonial Revival elements. Victorian Commercial, Queen
Anne Commercial, and Ruskinian Gothic flourished on Main Street. Richardsonian
Romanesque was chosen for the City High School, designed by George Hancock in 1892.
(The school was later called the West Side School, not to be confused with the earlier
school by that name. Later still, it was called Irving School, not to be confused with the
WPA/Fred Willson Irving School.) Because of the eclectic nature of Queen Anne, the
other Victorian styles blended well in the profusion of High and Late Victorian. So also
did the proto-modem Richardsonian high school building, which closely resembled
Henry Hobson Richardson's Allegheny County Courthouse.
Eclecticism of form, as seen in the Bozeman City Hall and Opera House (designed by
Byron Vreeland in 1890), had its counterpart in eclecticism of function, as this
description demonstrates:
The city hall, built two years ago, is one of the finest edifices of its kind in
the state. It is a two story brick building and cost the city $40,000. On the
first floor is the council chamber, a room containing apparatus of the fire
department, and office of the Street Railway and Electric Light Company.
On the second floor, in front, are the Bozeman free library and several
private offices; in the rear is the opera house, a gem in its way, and having
a seating capacity of about 900.
Bozeman, Montana Historic Context pagel9
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1-
Architecturally, the City Hall and Opera House gave its nod to Second Empire with its
straight-sided mansard roof, square plan, and central projecting pavilion. The tower roof,
however, was pyramidal, and the overall treatment of the facade and other brick surfaces
was asymmetrical. Windows were placed singly or grouped in pairs or triple bands. Flat,
segmental, and round arches appeared randomly. A miniature turret rose at the comer
above the roofline, where gables and tall chimneys rose along with the square tower. The
centrally placed double entrance had an upper arched light of rich colored and leaded
glass.
In the same spirit, several brick business blocks on Main Street showed a departure from
earlier designs. Asymmetrical and dynamic, these structures, such as the Tracy/Barnett
building (1889-1890) and the I.O.O.F. Hall (1891) proudly displayed facades with
irregular parapets, which created perspective illusions, and such embellishments as an
onion dome (Tracy/Barnett) or rusticated stone details and accents. Both of these
buildings still stand, although in somewhat altered form.
The City Hall and Opera House, demolished in the 1970s, and its companion, the Tilton
Building (1889), also demolished, occupied the southwest and northeast comers
respectively of the intersection of Rouse A venue and Main Street, the historic heart of
Bozeman. In 1891, architect George Hancock designed the Bozeman Hotel to occupy a
third comer (northwest) of that intersection. Using a Victorian Commercial style, the
fortress-like structure appears larger than its four stories, and even larger than its five
story comer tower, which was originally designed to be capped with a pyramidal roof.
With its siting, scale, and grandeur, the hotel achieves a dynamism which its smaller
neighbors approximate through illusionistic ornament.
In residential architecture, Queen Anne and related styles, such as Eastlake, displayed a
similar exuberance to that of commercial architecture. The Eastlake-ornamented brick
home of George Flanders on South Grand Avenue (1888), and the newly-veneered Sam
Lewis home on South Bozeman, both displayed a vigor not unlike Main Street's newer
1890s designs. Yet, even when constructed of brick, as in the William A. Tudor Queen
Anne Cottage (613 South Willson Avenue) or the Queen Anne Bozeman Sanitarium (c.
1896, no longer standing), the proud, noisy quality, which was so appealing on Main
Street, seemed to be tempered by domesticity. Symbolic associations identified with the
Carpenter Gothic mode were not so much outgrown as reborn in such dwellings as the
Niles/Langohr Queen Anne Cottage. The obligatory gable-fronted projecting bay, with
shingled gable end and returning eaves, suggests interior intimate family activities,
centered around the central window with its colored glass transom. The turned posts and
brackets on the entry porch are also classic Queen Anne, yet modesty in ornament, in the
context ofthe overall pleasing appearance ofthe house, seems almost a virtue. The 1889
William A. Tudor house is a less demure brick version of the Queen Anne Cottage. Its
carved wood brackets adorning the windows at the faceted comers of the projecting front
bay still seem to articulate interior domestic space, but less literally than the
Niles/Langhor house.
Bozeman, Montana Historic Context page20
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Although the Queen Anne Cottage began to appear along Bozeman's residential avenues
and to influence ornamentation of pre-existing houses, a few larger residences were built
which are perhaps closer to quintessential Queen Anne, using polygonal bays and turrets,
colored and leaded glass, turned posts and balustrades, and multiple roof lines. The 1896
"Lehrkind Mansion," home of German brewer Julius Lehrkind, exemplifies the brick
version of this style. Its location near the family brewery business provided it with an
estate-like setting where trees and shrubbery enhanced the picturesque nature of the
Queen Anne design elements. The Mendenhall home (521 South Willson Avenue) is a
frame variation more oriented to the city street. Built in 1886 from a pattern book design,
the dwelling displays a profusion of appliqued sunbursts, scroll brackets, variegated
shingles, and cut-out designs. Porches, balconies, polygonal bays, and turrets contribute
to the asymmetrical composition.
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in Bozeman, several large Victorian
homes were built that did not typify Queen Anne architecture. These frame or brick
structures strove in their design for a restrained stateliness that would have been
compromised by the excessive ornament of Queen Anne. Many of these, located on
South Willson, South Grand and South Third avenues, began with the "Classic Box"
form (a two-story square block with pyramidal roof) and then varied that symmetrical
plan with elements like two-story projecting square bays (C. Kenyon house, 204 South
Third Avenue, 1900; and Svorkmoe house, 621 South Grand Avenue, 1911) or
gambreled dormers (Roecher house, 319 South Third A venue, 1900). Features of the
more flamboyant Queen Anne style, such as round towers or bays, were admissible after
the turn of the century if tempered by Colonial Revival detailing (John Kopp/W. A. Hall
house, 502 South Grand Avenue, 1903; E. W. King house, 725 South Willson Avenue,
1906-1907). In the case of the Ketterer residence (35 North Grand A venue, 1901 ),
Colonial Revival elements dominate but Queen Anne influence is irrepressible, showing
up in the form of fish scale shingles, carved wooden brackets, and a single leaded glass
window. The Davidson house (613 South Willson Avenue, 1907), designed by architect
C. S. Haire, attains its mark of individuality with Palladian windows and Gothic Revival
details. The adaptability of the "Classic Box" is well demonstrated by this group of
individualistic residences which, to be accurate, must be said to include even the
Lehrkind Mansion, the "quintessential Queen Anne." In fact, the Lehrkind Mansion
evolved in stages from the simpler form.
Other forms taken by the stately architecture of Bozeman's prestigious neighborhoods are
perhaps best described as "mannerist" in their quest for individuality. Architect-designed
homes, such as the Davidson house, could be viewed as part of this group as well.
Somewhat anomalous among the builders' traditions of Bozeman, residences such as the
Davidson house (C. S. Haire, architect) and the Martin house (419 South Grand, 1892,
George Hancock, architect), represent a pinnacle of"cultivated taste" for their respective
eras. The Martin house was ironically labeled "A Typical Bozeman Home" in an
illustrated promotional publication of the era.31 Nothing could be further from the truth;
the large, impressive two-and-one-half story house, with its massive corbeled chimneys
and unusual wood frieze, is typical only of Bozeman's wealthier citizens' penchant for
grandeur.
Bozeman, Montana Historic Context page21
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The General Willson home (504 South Willson Avenue, 1886) and the Edwin B. Lamme
Home (501 South Grand Avenue, 1893) represent early frame examples ofthis
individualistic grandeur. What might have been simply an imposing large home for a
dignified town father like General Willson became instead an architectural statement of
sweeping elegance with the integration into the design of a two-story, round-ended wing.
The Lamme house achieves its eccentricity through a variety of roof planes, from a steep
gable roof with axis parallel to the street, to two differently sloped, pediment-like front-
facing gables, and finally an engaged conical cap over a miniature balcony which
protrudes from the front slope of the principal roof. Both the balcony and its roof appear
to melt into the larger roof. Flared eaves further accentuate the roof themes, as does an
extended porch roof which becomes an almost off-handed porte-cochere.
Two other highly individualistic residences still existing on South Third A venue are the
Benepe house at 201 South Third (1883) and the second William A. Tudor house at 805
South Third (1904). These may be contrasted as opposite approaches to a similar goal of
uniqueness. The original two-story box-like form ofthe Benepe house is thoroughly
disguised or, more accurately, transformed by a series of modifications and ornamental
refurbishings. The lure of Queen Anne and Eastlake went unresisted as multiple roof
lines, leaded glass, and fancy woodwork created whole new surfaces, windows and
porches in profuse eclectic display. The Third Avenue Tudor home, in contrast, achieved
its decorative individuality by virtue of a carefully composed original plan which could
be compromised only by alterations such as those to which the Benepe house owes its
effectiveness. This house shares eclecticism and complexity with the Benepe house, but
draws from Eastern Stick style (its half-timbered effect and angular symmetry), and from
Arts and Crafts style (its shed dormers and window detailing). The integrated design
accommodates with dignity such distinctive features as a projecting second-level sleeping
porch over a front entry, but it still makes the desired statement of eccentricity.
The extensive variety of designs offered by pattern books or builders' catalogues were
ideal for such expressions of"character." These publications had been in circulation since
1797 (The Country Builder's Assistant), and they increased in popularity in the mid-
nineteenth century when A. J. Downing and A. J. Davis popularized (with a missionary
zeal) Gothic Revival-derived house design. Pattern books came into extensive use in
Bozeman after Carpenter Gothic, Second Empire, and Eastlake had run their course.
Queen Anne remained as a stylistic component in many pattern book designs appearing
in Bozeman, and one known example exists (the Mendenhall house, 521 South Willson
A venue, described above) of an early pattern book design which is strictly Queen Anne.
The E. W. King house exemplifies the pattern book design as a tour de force of stylistic
integration (Queen Anne and Colonial Revival) and displays such distinctive materials as
curved, leaded, and etched glass, terra cotta cable moldings, and turned wood balustrades
and columns. Often the architectural elements were ordered directly from a manufacturer,
and such structures were sometimes sold as a "package deal" and shipped in pieces to the
customer by rail.
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The T. Byron Story house (811 South Willson A venue, 191 0) is another residence which
corresponds in design to styles which were popular in pattern books. Recalling resort
architecture in its eclecticism and monumental scale, the structure combines
characteristics of Shingle, Stick, and Queen Anne styles. Classical and medieval
references are juxtaposed in an eclectic construction of brick, stone, and shingles,
embellished with curved bays, a porte-cochere, and broad gables with half-timber effect.
Attributed to architect C. S. Haire, the home was constructed by Bozeman contractor
John Scahill. Even if it is not an adaptation of a pattern book design, the house is
stylistically related to that genre.
At the same time that the wealthy residents of Bozeman were finding pattern book
designs helpful in expressing cosmopolitan values and individualistic statements of
independence and "character," the less socially and economically privileged
homeowners, and the speculation builders who served them, found a different value in
pattern book designs. Simple floor plans that addressed basic domestic concerns such as
privacy, economy, comfort, and practicality, were available from several different
companies. A house plan book, published in 1903 by the Radford Architectural
Company of Riverside, Illinois, presented one hundred perspective views and floor plans
of"low and medium priced houses." These plans were billed as "original, practical and
attractive house designs, such as seventy-five to ninety percent of the people today wish
to build." Prestige and quality were stressed in that each plan was "designed by a
licensed architect who stands at the head of his profession in this particular class of
work." Economy, however, was the principal selling point, as evidenced by claims that
"we will give you the most for your money; besides, every bit of space has been utilized
to the best advantage."32
Mass production of these plans and specifications, at an average price of five dollars per
set, represented an outright assault on vernacular or traditional dwelling types for which
builders did not need such plans. New screening of building plans, however, demanded
by building and loan companies and insurance companies, contributed to the demise of
traditional house forms in Bozeman and in towns and cities across the nation. As
residential Bozeman began to grow toward the college, such structures became the
dominant features of avenues to the south and southwest of downtown. The north side
also became the site of many ofthese homes, which, twenty years later, would relinquish
their dominance to another popular house-type, the "California bungalow." Good
examples of these modest homes, with plans likely from a pattern book, are found
primarily in Bozeman's southern neighborhoods, such as the Cooper Park Historic
District.
Although claims of architectural superiority were, in many cases, not borne out by the
designs themselves, it is nonetheless common in Bozeman that residences of the pattern
book type are well-preserved and interesting components of their neighborhood. Stylistic
references may be vague or modified beyond recognition, but the importance placed upon
distinguishing these dwellings from traditional forms resulted in a certain variety
associated with a broad pool of architectural features. The underlying standardization -of
construction methods, floor plans, scale, proportion, materials and concept -is masked by
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genuine attempts at individualization, achieved by variation of rooflines, window
treatment, porches, dormers, balconies and even, in some cases, massing. Often
associated with early suburban development, these houses are especially appropriate to
the garden-like setting of Bozeman's residential neighborhoods.
In general, Classical, Georgian, and Colonial references, particularly in wood trim, took
the place of Queen Anne turned posts, balustrades, brackets, aprons, and valances. The
shift was even more marked, however, among public and commercial buildings. The
brick County High School (404 West Main Street, 1902) displayed pediment-like gables
and Palladian detailing on an imposing symmetrical facade. The Carnegie Library
building (35 North Bozeman Avenue, 1902-1903) was designed by Helena architect C. S.
Haire in one of the styles common to the library buildings funded by philanthropist
Andrew Carnegie. The brick and sandstone structure features a Greek cross plan and a
pedimented entrance with Doric columns. The building was used as a library until 1981
and now houses private offices. On Main Street, the success of local bankers was as
evident as it was on South Willson A venue where several bankers built grand homes
during the Civic Phase. The National Bank of Gallatin Valley (1 West Main, 1906),
constructed of cast stone, exemplified the early twentieth century version of Classical
Revival through the use of fluted columns, a paneled frieze, and rusticated cast stone;
Egyptian Revival is also in evidence in details such as the swelling of the columns. The
Gallatin State Bank (2 West Main, 1908-1909) displayed similar Classical elements,
notably a comer entrance flanked by Ionic columns. Other commercial buildings of the
early twentieth century were ornamented with some Classical detailing, such as the
colonnaded frieze of the Golden Rule Store (11 West Main Street, 1906) and the
prominent Corinthian columns ofthe Gem Theatre (c. 1909, no longer standing).
Bozeman's selection as the site for Montana's land grant college influenced the city's
economic and social development in significant and complex ways. In the architecture,
however, it appears that the influence is, to some degree, reversed. The new agricultural
college may have reflected local architectural practices more than it influenced the built
environment ofBozeman. In the early years, for instance, the college was dependent on
the use of local commercial buildings, just as the early Bozeman schools had been. The
first structure to be built on campus, the Extension Building (1894) was a simple brick,
two-and-one-half story building with a clipped gable roof, recalling Gothic Revival
domestic structures such as Walter Cooper's Main Street home (no longer standing) or
Sam Lewis' twin rental houses on South Tracy A venue.
The dominant building for many years was Main Hall (now known as Montana Hall,
1896), designed by European-trained Helena architect John C. Paulsen and constructed
by Charles Suiter. Although this Victorian Gothic structure has no counterpart in
Bozeman, except in the later Fisher residence (South Willson A venue, no longer
standing, 1908), the existence of numerous Gothic Revival buildings in Bozeman may
have influenced Paulsen's choice, either directly or indirectly through local board
members. Paulsen's designs were known to include other likely choices, such as Neo-
Classicism or Beaux Arts Classicism, but Gothic Revival designs were perhaps his best.
The influence of local Masonic interests is seen in the integration of Masonic symbols
Bozeman, Montana Historic Context page24
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into the design of the entrance; in addition, the Masonic Grand Lodge of Montana
conducted the ceremonies for the laying of the cornerstone on October 21, 1896.
Functional buildings were given little attention in terms of design, a practice seen both
locally and at the land grant college. This is reflected in the utilitarian nature of early
campus buildings such as the drill hall, shop building, dairy building (1901), heating
plant (1903), dairy bam (1906), and greenhouses. The Chemical Building, which burned
in 1916, bore no resemblance to Bozeman's architecture and looked somewhat like a
symmetrical version of the Italian Villa style, perhaps with military connotations. With
the construction of the Agriculture building (1907-1908, now known as Linfield Hall),
the influence of Bozeman's civic architecture, in particular Longfellow School and
Gallatin County High School, is evident. Yet the Agriculture College would remain
dependent for many years on its utilitarian frame and even log structures. In this it
followed the same pattern as the county schools, which included not only newer, grander
buildings, but also the simple one-room log and frame schoolhouses.
Progressive Phase (1913-1929)
The 'Progressivism' ... that broader impulse toward criticism and change
that was everywhere so conspicuous after 1900, when the already forceful
stream of agrarian discontent was enlarged and redirected by the growing
enthusiasm of middle-class people for social and economic reform. 33
While the Progressive Phase in Bozeman and Gallatin County history was a period of
continued growth, more importantly it was a period of transformation. In industry, the
pattern of agricultural manufacturing and productive operations related to extractive
activity had been established at the outset of the Townsite Phase with flour and lumber
mills. In the Progressive Phase, however, a number of factors combined to influence
shifts in fortunes and directions in the field of industrial production. Among those factors
were pressures from the resident land grant college and its research arm, the experiment
stations. The Montana Agricultural Experiment Station had counseled changes in
agricultural practices that favored increased production of hay accompanied by livestock
raising. By 1913, efforts were underway to reap the benefits of this economic advice.
Charles L. Anceny, son of cattleman Charles Anceny ofthe Manhattan area, sought
eastern capital to help expand his livestock operation to 120,000 acres. The business was
incorporated in 1929 as the Flying D Ranges. The gradual invasion of irrigated areas in
the county accompanied Anceny's expansion and a concurrent general rise in the
livestock industry.34
After the Jerome B. Rice Seed Company of Detroit conducted soil tests in 1911, farmers
planted 17,000 acres of peas in the valley in 1913. Gallatin County subsequently was
able to supply four seed companies, stimulate incorporation of the Bozeman Canning
Company in 1917, and support the operation of a cannery known as Pictsweet, Inc. after
1940; the latter remained in operation until1958. Bozeman's reputation as the "Sweet
Pea City" grew out of this period as boosters capitalized on the picturesque aspects of this
economic development.
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Political factors on the national, state, and local levels also influenced transformations in
the economic base for both Bozeman and Gallatin County. The homestead boom prior to
World War I placed Bozeman in an advantageous position as an established supply
center, but it also caused a shift of political power as politically progressive, sometimes
even radical, Scandinavian and German settlers established farms in the eastern part of
the state. Social unrest, however, marred the prosperity as the Montana Council of
Defense fueled wartime hysteria with passage of the Montana Sedition Act which,
according to historians Michael P. Malone and Richard B. Roeder, "became the model
for the notorious federal Sedition Law of May 1918, a law which was widely used to
stifle criticism of the war and which many authorities consider the most sweeping
violation of civil liberties in modem American history."35
One consequence ofthe political shift was the passage in 1916 of a state dry law, to take
effect at the end of 1918. This led to the demise ofthe Manhattan Malting Company.
The need for grain during World War I, however, eased the transition from malting
barley to wheat and caused general prosperity for a short time as market prices reflected
wartime need for agricultural products. Another casualty of Prohibition was the
Bozeman brewery, operated by Julius Lehrkind. When Montana went dry, it was
converted into a soft drink plant. The Bozeman Bottling Works continued operations at
802 North Wallace through 1970.36
With the combined disasters of a postwar drop in market prices, a serious drought, and
the devastating influenza epidemic of 1918-1919, fortunes took a tragic tum for many.
Drought conditions prevailed throughout the 1920s. The State Department of Agriculture
and Publicity, under Governor Stewart, joined with railroad companies to solicit non-
resident investors in an effort to revive the injured economy. Despite this, the state lost
an estimated 60,000 people between 1921 and 1925.37
Gallatin County fared reasonably well in comparison with other agricultural counties,
particularly those in the newly settled eastern portion of the state. The national
conditions, however, of low market prices, agricultural depression, and subsequent
consolidation of land and wealth, occurred to some degree in Gallatin County as well.
During this time, the Agricultural College worked with the state to rescue the economy
through investment of outside capital. The passage of the Smith-Lever Cooperative
Extension Act of 1914 opened the way for federal appropriations to be funneled through
the land grant colleges, under the joint supervision and control of the Department of
Agriculture and the colleges.
For Gallatin County, this meant the intensified application of the Land Grant College
Association's philosophy of "progressivism" which had been taking shape throughout the
early years of the twentieth century. The essence of that philosophy was that the farmer
who utilized scientific methods (i.e. mechanization, efficiency, and capital-intensive
production techniques) was the deserving heir to the "mossback" farmer's "mismanaged"
farm. This philosophy, which favored streamlining both farm management and banking
practices insufficient for the needs of smaller farmers, took political form in the
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American Farm Bureau Federation. Access to federal, state, and county funding placed
the Agricultural College and the Farm Bureau together in a powerful alliance in
opposition to other farm organizations such as the Farmers Union, which took a more
liberal political position. It also drew some support from the radical Nonpartisan
League.38
Although the Agricultural College suffered from economic setbacks, such as reduced
state appropriations in 1923 when eleven faculty members were sacrificed, this period
was nonetheless one of increasing power and influence for the institution in the state and
the community. An alliance with community leaders who shared an appreciation of
progressive philosophy resulted in the organization ofthe Rotary Club, which in 1921
spearheaded a movement to adopt the Commission-Manager form of city government. A
debt of $4 73,002.02 spurred the leaders to secure for Bozeman the distinction of being
the first city in Montana to adopt the new, although essentially conservative, form of
government. The promise of greater efficiency was fulfilled, at least in the first few years,
as the same general group of officials served out terms during which the debt was
substantially reduced. 39
The Bozeman Chamber of Commerce took an aggressive approach in this period as well.
It recognized the commercial potential ofYellowstone National Park tourism several
years before the State Department of Agriculture and Publicity sought to increase tourism
through its nationally-distributed promotional publications. The Bozeman Chamber
pressed to increase access to the park through the west entrance. In 1914, with the help of
other boosters, the Chamber won approval of the Park Superintendent and the Secretary
of the Interior for the use of automobiles within the park. The resulting increased use of
the west entrance had a significant effect on the face of Bozeman throughout the
Progressive Phase, as automobile culture made its indelible mark.40
The first pre-war signs of the automobile bore no resemblance to mid-twentieth century
blight which can be associated properly with the phenomenon of the automobile. Instead,
Story Motor Supply No. 2, designed by Fred Willson, celebrated the spirit of change and
adventure which cars represented to many. Located at the northwest comer of Main and
Wallace, the structure (no longer standing) blended with its surroundings. One neighbor
was the gable-fronted frame building housing Goldberg and Shulman Hide & Fur Co.
("We pay more" read their sign. An additional sign reading "Auto Wrecking" suggested
diversification of the hide and fur business.) A stately street lamp, comely sidewalks, and
trees surrounded the hip-roofed Story Motor building with its adjoining arched canopy.
Trellises ornamented and shaded the hooded area and a similar trellis motif served as a
low fence at the comer. The structure, which was owned by Nelson Story, had the
appearance of a small railroad depot, particularly with its low-hipped roof with a sign
mounted vertically at the ridgeline. The enterprise was considered to be one of the first
"true" filling stations, in part because "Only gas was sold, no horse shoeing." Another
Story Motor Supply, built in 1925 and referred to as the Church Street Texaco Station (no
longer standing), adhered to even higher standards of decorum: a shingled, flared
mansard roof with ridgepoles, finial balls, and decorative eave brackets sheltered an
enclosed structure with double-hung windows with eight-over-eight sash arrangement
Bozeman, Montana Historic Context page27
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and arched transoms, as well as an open arcaded area with columns on brick piers. A tall
trellis-like fence with an arched gateway provided a backdrop to the rear. With its
whimsical character, the structure could almost be seen as a reincarnation of the gazebos
which were once so popular in Victorian age Bozeman.41
It was during this Progressive Phase that the status of automobiles changed from fad to
necessity. Cars were so unusual in 1900 that there was just one for every 9,500 people in
the United States. Ten years later the ratio dropped to one vehicle for every 200 people
and, by 1920, it had decreased further to one for every 13 people. The rise in cars hit
railroads hard. Train travel was further curtailed in late 1917 when the federal
government took over primary railroad lines to move troops and war materiel. This
forced travelers into cars and most never looked back. 42
As cars and automobile-related businesses increased during the Progressive Phase, some
other businesses suffered. According to the Polk directory, there was just one auto dealer
in Bozeman in 1910-1911 but there were two bicycle dealers, one buggy business, and
seven blacksmiths. By 1922, however, the number ofbusinesses (including tires and
repairs) related to automobiles had increased to eighteen while the bicycle dealers had
decreased to one, the buggy operation was gone, and the number of blacksmiths had
dropped to four.43
Auto tourism grew as the traveling public shifted from railroads to cars. Initially, most
auto tourists stayed in established hotels, but it did not take long for a free-spirited group
of adventurers to come up with an alternative: auto camping. Anarchy reigned in this
new sport during the 191 Os as travelers camped wherever they wanted beside the road.
Rural families soon grew tired of hosting unwanted visitors in their fields and orchards,
however. By the end of the decade, towns began to see the financial benefit ofhaving
such tourists camp nearby. This led to the growth of municipal auto camps, usually
centrally located near downtown merchants. Most of these free camps provided water,
restrooms, and electric lights. In return, cities banked on these visitors spending freely in
town. Bozeman established just such a camp by 1920 at Bogert's Grove, where tourists
could pitch tents beside their automobiles.44
Auto camping boomed in the years following World War I, growing from 4.6 million
campers in 1917 to 19.2 million in 1926. As campgrounds became more crowded,
especially with working class tourists, more affluent travelers returned to hotels. Many
cities then began to charge a small fee to cover costs and screen out free-loaders. These
fees opened the door for competition from the private sector, and by the late 1920s, a
majority of tourists were staying in private camps. Most municipal camps closed by the
mid-1930s. Private campgrounds began renting platform tents, which then evolved into
cabin camps. Such accommodations proliferated nationwide in the 1920s.45
In 1928 Fred Willson listed "cabins in Tourist Park" among his job orders, presumably
referring to the tourist park at 411 North Willson Avenue. This was apparently
Bozeman's first cabin camp, known as the Sundown Tourist Camp. It was listed in the
1931 Polk directory and continued in operation at least through 1956. The 1943 Sanborn
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map shows an L-shaped line of cabins on the west and south with an additional duplex on
the north and four-plex on the east; a separate shower building stood in the center. The
open area to the north may have been used for auto tent camping as well.46
Auto tourists as well as owners needed other services as well. Gas stations multiplied
during the Progressive Phase, increasing from just two in 1922 to twelve just nine years
later. Several garages and filling stations are found in work orders record~d by Fred
Willson's office. Transient visitors passing through Bozeman may have contributed to
the need for a new Salvation Army building (Fred Willson, 1927), Chamber of
Commerce building (Fred Willson, 1927), and the Beall Park bandstand (Fred Willson,
1929).47
Accommodations for visitors were not all so informal or auto-related. Some tourists took
advantage ofPete Karst's Gallatin Canyon bus line (1924) and sought more genteel
lodgings at the Hotel Fechter (128-130 East Main Street, Fred Willson, 1918) or the
Baxter Hotel (105 West Main Street, Fred Willson, 1929). The Milwaukee Railroad
constructed another tourist inn at the nearby town of Salesville in 1927, which led to
changing the town's name to Gallatin Gateway. Tourists bound for Yellowstone
National Park passed through this community.48
While visitors found Bozeman accommodating, residents were working on a number of
projects to enhance community life. These included construction of new educational and
religious institutions, such as Emerson School and Holy Rosary Convent, and
development of new commercial and recreational institutions, such as the fair,
fairgrounds, and rodeo. Citizens watched construction of the new post office (32 South
Tracy A venue) in 1915 and the principal building for Deaconess Hospital (15 West
Lamme Street) in 1920. Women's clubs, fraternal societies, and service clubs thrived and
reorganized with new goals. The new Y.M.C.A. building was used in conjunction with
the public school recreational programs. The symphony was established soon after the
war and the Ellen Theatre, designed by Fred Willson, was constructed in 1919-1920.
"Popcorn Johnny" became a legend plying his trade on Main Street, dispensing popcorn
from a wagon like a 1920s version of Bozeman's early tent businesses. Mrs. E. Broox
Martin provided funds to build the Beall Park Community Center in 1927. The building
was converted into a community arts center in 1984 and remains in public use.
Up and down Main Street the spirit of change could be seen in the numerous and varied
alterations which took precedence over new construction, particularly in the 1920s. Even
where there was continuity of use, new facades were designed, many by Fred Willson.
Storefronts became extensions of signage as they eclectically separated one bay from
another on the same building facade. It was during this period that street level facades
were brought into the modem world, leaving upper levels strangely behind in a previous
age. Some of the commercial buildings' most distinguishing characteristics, such as
turrets or domes, were removed after the 1925 earthquake, leaving the upper story
facades mute and chastened. Some remodels, such as the Bon-Ton building on Main
Street (Fred Willson, 1928), completely covered over the original surfaces. Another was
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the Victorian Sbree, Ferris & White building (34-42 West Main Street, pre-1890), hidden
behind a new, stuccoed Mission style structure applied over the exterior.
The spirit of change also was visible in residential buildings which shifted to favor the
Arts and Crafts bungalow, especially in the neighborhoods near the college. The
bungalow was viewed as a scientific, practical, modest home that could reform both rich
and the poor and create a norm for those in between. Innumerable pattern books and
catalogues featured everything from plans to precut components for assembly. The
influence of the Arts and Crafts movement appeared in its clearest form in 1913 with the
Purdum house (602 West Story Street), designed by Fred Willson. A number of
residential structures of the Craftsman look were constructed on South Tracy and
throughout Bozeman. Some quite modest examples of the bungalow can be found in the
working class neighborhood on North Tracy. Most of these bungalow residences were
constructed during the Progressive Phase using modest plans based on pattern books.
Mass produced materials replaced handcrafted, rustic, or regional materials. W. R. Plew,
of the college's architectural engineering department, designed a one-and-a-half story
bungalow or "bungaloid" house for his own family on South Willson in 1915. Several
others nearby have a similar appearance.
Plew also applied the bungalow form to "other buildings. The 1927 Beall Park
Community Center is the clearest non-residential form of the Arts and Crafts movement
in Bozeman. Its design utilized natural materials that answered the requirements for
rusticity and regional influence as outlined in Gustav Stickley's journal, The Craftsman.
Plew also favored the bungalow form for schoolhouse design and wrote a bulletin,
published by Montana State Department of Health and Public Instruction, recommending
the design. This consequently influenced rural school plans in the county and
elsewhere.49
The apartment building, an adventuresome departure from the traditions of single-family
detached houses, began to appear in Bozeman at the beginning of the Progressive Phase.
Considered radical by some, the apartment building was also viewed as the height of
modernity when it offered "A.M. I." -all modern improvements. The Blackmore
Apartments, designed by Fred Willson in 1913-14, was the first of its kind in Bozeman,
and featured a pleasant inner court, sun porches, and "the finest, most up-to-date
conveniences." Another was the Bridger Arms Apartments (103-111 South Fourth
A venue). The designer was Professor Cheever of the architectural school at the College.
Nationalization Phase (1930-1945)
The stock market crash of 1929 precipitated an economic depression that gripped the
nation, and indeed the world, for much of the next decade. By the time newly-elected
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt took the oath of office in March 1933, thirteen
million Americans were unemployed. Bozeman, like other American communities, faced
many challenges during this period, but with the assistance of federal funds, it was able to
add much-needed educational and governmental facilities. Along with the precedent-
Bozeman, Montana Historic Context page30
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setting federal funding came the now familiar federal guidelines and regulations, as well
as new technology, materials, and building styles. The economic crisis eased by the late
1930s and the country finally boomed again after the end of World War II.
During this period, federal-state relations shifted as government bureaucracies expanded
on all levels. Locally, the 1930s and 1940s brought about a new relationship between the
city of Bozeman and the federal government. President Roosevelt's New Deal generated
a host of programs to provide employment. Federal funds, matched at least partially by
state or local money, were channeled into public works programs that constructed
everything from local roads to massive dams. Some Gallatin County citizens greeted this
new reality with a degree of reluctance or outright opposition, voting down bond issues to
fund projects only partially subsidized by the Works Progress Administration (WP A).
Other citizens and local officials persisted and finally prevailed, approving bond issues
and WP A funding for new public school buildings and a new courthouse. Montana State
College president Alfred Atkinson found public works programs so distasteful that he
resisted use of the funds for campus housing until it was almost too late. He finally
relented and the college secured federal funds for the Atkinson Quadrangle women's
dormitory (Seventh Avenue and Cleveland, Fred Willson, 1938).50
Despite incidences of anti-New Deal sentiment, the sheer economic hardship of the times
demanded participation of state and local governments and their institutions. While some
Montanans had achieved economic prosperity during the briefboom of the late 1920s,
drought and depression caused twenty-eight Montana counties to seek aid from the Red
Cross by 1931. Farmers and ranchers faced market disasters in addition to dust and wind,
just as Montana's copper and lumber industries felt the full impact of the stock market
crash by 1931.51
Many unemployed loggers and miners found WP A work building the Fort Peck Dam in
northeastern Montana. At a total of $100 million, this was the largest public works
project ever built in the state. Some men worked on smaller but locally significant
projects such as the airport constructed at Belgrade by the Civil Aviation Administration.
One of the most popular New Deal programs was the Civilian Conservation Corps
(CCC), which enrolled unmarried young men between the ages of eighteen and twenty-
five. They earned $30 per month for conservation-related work but were required to send
$25 of that home to dependent family members. In Gallatin County, the CCC worked
with the Forest Service in 1937 to construct the Squaw Creek Ranger Station and other
structures, as well as roads and campsites at Squaw Creek and Hyalite Canyon south of
Bozeman. In 1936, the State Water Conservation Board began construction at Willow
Creek on the first of two storage reservoirs to provide irrigation to Gallatin County farms;
it was completed in 1938. Construction on the second reservoir, located at Hyalite
Canyon, was started a year later but was not completed until1950.52
During the New Deal years, the prevailing architectural styles in Gallatin County
expressed new national ideals of efficiency and streamlining through structure and
ornament that derived from industrial design. The new courthouse and high school -
traditional symbols of civic pride -boldly spoke the new language of Art Moderne, with
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restrained touches of Art Deco for the sake of elegance. Longfellow, Irving, and
Hawthorne public schools further recalled the European influence of the Bauhaus which
had taken hold in America by the 1930s. Civic pride no longer stopped at buildings, but
reached out expansively to the contribution of the engineer in solving problems of
irrigation, transportation, and recreation. The local community was groomed for a role in
a national economic and geographic network.
Yet the most significant effect of the New Deal on the future of Bozeman took the form
not of a monument, building, or public works project. Instead, it took form in a new
economic and political relationship between Bozeman's resident institution, Montana
State College, and the rural communities across the state. As the administrative agency
for the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA), the MSC Extension Service
became Montana's principal actor in New Deal farm policy. Roy E. Huffman called the
AAA "the largest civilian government effort in the history of the world." In Montana, the
agency served thousands of farmers and ranchers, many of whom participated as part-
time administrators of the program, in conjunction with the college's representative, the
county agent. M. L. Wilson of Montana State, who helped formulate the "domestic
allotment" plan central to AAA policy, was chosen by Roosevelt to head the Wheat
Division. Another Montanan, Chester Davis, became director of the AAA in 1935. Davis
had served as editor of the Montana Farmer and as Montana's Commissioner of
Agriculture under Governor Dixon. 53
The importance of MSC to rural Montana was bolstered both by its presence in every
county in the state as well as by its expertise in finding technical solutions to agricultural
problems. The new emphasis on economic and managerial concerns further broadened
the influence of the college on the state. Roland R. Renne's ten-year study ( 1930-1940) of
the tax structure in Montana, for instance, led to legislative enactment of some of Renne's
recommendations. His study of the organization of county government in Montana
resulted in the restructuring of several county governments, including adoption of county
manager government in Petroleum County. The City of Butte issued a report on the Butte
Economic Survey, conducted by Renne with WPA assistance. Although Montana State
had traditionally offered services statewide, the New Deal radically redefined and
broadened the scope of those activities. Ironically, M. L. Wilson, then director of the
Extension Service at the national level, sought unsuccessfully in 1950 to reverse the
growth of some non-educational activities of the Extension Service. He worked in
conjunction with representatives of the Land Grant College Association particularly to
target Extension Service activities that had provided political advantages for the National
Farm Bureau Federation since the 1930s and the AAA.54
The 1930s continued many social, economic, and architectural practices established in
Bozeman during earlier periods. Main Street facades underwent some transformation to
Art Moderne or Art Deco styles (such as the Nash-Finch Building, 612 East Main Street),
and infill buildings often compromised between the verticality of their older neighbors
and the horizontality of newer practices. Architect Fred Willson expanded his repertoire
as he designed not only such traditional structures as the collegiate Gothic Revival
Atkinson Quadrangle, but also the new courthouse and public schools, Main Street
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remodeling, and some "period houses" for some of Bozeman's entrepreneurs. These
included homes for department store owner James R. Chambers (616 West Story, 1932)
and flour mill owner Eugene Graf(504 West Cleveland, 1935). While bungalows
remained popular, they were joined increasingly in the 1940s by simple box-like houses
financed through federally subsidized programs like those created by the Federal Housing
Act of 1934. These newer homes replaced older structures or filled empty lots on the
borders of the north and south residential neighborhoods. Sturdily but economically built,
these homes often blended well in scale and siting with their older neighbors.
Some new apartments and duplexes appeared in the south end of Bozeman during this
period. The building at 219-221 West Arthur Street provides a simple but elegant
example of the streamlined Modeme style. The two-story stucco duplex with flat roof
has a symmetrical facade with an outset enclosed entry. On either side of the front steps
is a metal banister designed with three concentric arcs. The porthole windows in the front
doors mirror the pair of porthole windows in the second story above. Pairs of two-over-
two windows are set in the comers. The horizontal lines of these window divisions
mimic the horizontal bars in the portholes as well as the lines of the metal railing above
the outset entry. A single-car garage is attached on either side, set back from the facade.
Another larger Mod erne apartment building is found at 1017-1019 South Grand A venue.
Agricultural manufacturing, one of the oldest economic traditions of the Gallatin Valley,
continued into the 1930s and 1940s. The Bozeman Canning Company provided jobs for
both men and women during the Depression, but it limited employees' hours in order to
share the work among many families in need of a paycheck. Businesses related to grain
processing remained an important sector of the economy in Bozeman. Elevator
complexes rose tall above the railroad tracks, storing the grain that went into the
production of animal feed, cereal, and flour. The number of flour mills increased during
this period when the Bon Ton Mills joined Montana Flour Mills and the Gallatin Valley
Milling Company. Eugene Grafestablished the Bon Ton Mills in 1932 to process flour
for his bakery interests. The mill was designed by Fred Willson and still stands on North
Wallace, now renovated for new uses. 55
Creameries continued as an important aspect of agricultural manufacturing. Bozeman
supported two creameries in 1922 to process milk from five local dairies. Ten years later,
twenty-one dairymen joined forces to establish the Gallatin Cooperative Creamery,
housed initially in the former Milwaukee Depot. During that depression year, the
cooperative's advocates voiced hopes that the venture would "more than double the farm
population of the county." Dairy cooperatives had become increasingly important in the
early twentieth century because they allowed small farmers to band together to improve
their bargaining power, thus ensuring better prices for their products. By the 1930s, these
cooperatives nationwide produced one-quarter of all cheese and more than one-third of
all butter. The local Bozeman product was known as Gallatin Gold. 56
These industries depended on the railroad for transportation during the first half of the
twentieth century. All of the major industries in Bozeman were located along railroad
spurs which left the main line to run past warehouses, grain elevators, the bottling
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company, and the pea processing plants. Without this transportation link, these
businesses would have had considerable difficulty getting their products to market.
The Automobile ownership and use continued to increase during the Depression years,
encouraging the growth of auto-related businesses. In Bozeman, gas stations increased
from twelve in 1931 to twenty-one in 1940. There were two tourist camps in 1931, the
Bozeman Auto Camp at 1001 East Main and the Sundown Tourist Camp at 411 North
Willson Avenue (mentioned earlier). Just nine years later, they were joined by
Nicholson's Cottage Court at 5 South 8th Avenue and Henry H. Jeter's accommodations
at 725 South ih Avenue. Nicholson's was a large operation that filled half a city block
with twenty-two units organized into a continuous U-shaped plan that alternated living
quarters and attached garages or carports. Jeter's motel was a smaller business with just
ten units laid out in two parallel lines. It also featured a continuous line that alternated
living space with car space. Jeter's soon became known as the Gallatin Motel which
survives today (2008) as apartments. These four tourist camps represent the early form
of motels in Bozeman. 57
Increases in enrollment at Montana State College helped to keep Bozeman's economy
afloat in the 1930s. When housing became an even greater concern than usual for
students, some resourcefully arranged for group purchase of residences. For instance,
women students purchased the Kenyon home (201 South Third) in 1936, and two years
later, a men's group bought the former Fisher residence (712 South Willson). This
Mission style home was known as the "Men's Co-op" until the 1980s when it became a
single family home once more.58
The close ofthe 1930s brought a waning ofNew Deal programs. European countries
became engulfed in World War II by the end of the decade, and the conflict soon
entangled the United States as well. Much of the economy shifted during this period to
support the war effort. Construction of an engineering building, Ryon Lab, in 1939
symbolized the growing importance of the industrial community to the land grant college,
formerly dominated by agriculture. Military training programs began on campus in 1940
and included civilian pilot training (1940); "short courses" in national defense (1941 );
nurse's training in conjunction with Bozeman Deaconess Hospital (1942); Army Air
Force Training Command (1943); and Army Specialized Training Units (1943).
Campus facilities were strained, despite construction of a long-awaited student union
building (Fred Willson, 1940). In the spring of 1943, women students made room for
military trainees by moving out of their dormitories and into men's fraternity houses,
which had been closed while the men were serving in the military. As the war created a
nationwide labor shortage, Bozeman felt its effects. When an emergency call went out to
harvest sugar beets, the president of the college closed classes so students could help.
College officials also cancelled spring vacation in 1942 so that students could leave early
for summer defense work. 59
Both news of the war and entertainment were supplied by the local movie theaters,
notably the Ellen, which had undergone remodeling and acoustical revamping for the
"talkies" in 1931. KRBM, now KXXL, began broadcasting as Bozeman's first radio
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station by 1939. As the only station for eleven years, KRBM attempted to fill a variety of
roles, including the promotion and encouragement of "Victory Gardens" during the war.
The station provided a community garden plot near its transmitter, thereby enabling those
without land to participate in this patriotic activity. The county agent from the Extension
Service judged the gardens and awarded a prize.60
The National Guard constructed a new Armory in 1941 on land donated by the Story
family, Bozeman pioneers. That same year, the 163rd Infantry Regiment of Bozeman
was activated for service, which included duty in New Guinea and the Southern
Philippines. The Armory, designed by Fred Willson in a simplified Art Deco style,
served as a community gathering place for many years, but is now scheduled for
demolition.61
Under an arrangement with the federal government during the war, the railroads agreed to
a stepped-up maintenance schedule in order to avoid wartime nationalization. This may
explain the attention given to the Northern Pacific tunnel, which was rebuilt in 1944.
World War II ended first in Europe on May 8, 1945, and then in Japan with its surrender
on August 14. The United States prepared to welcome 11 million veterans home. The
country was infused with hope for the future, yet also haunted by memories of the recent
Great Depression. Thus this phase ended with a mix of optimism and uncertainty.
Postwar Expansion Phase (1946-1970)
The end of the war and the return of millions of soldiers stimulated a period of
tremendous growth in the United States. During the preceding several years, wartime
restrictions had limited production and sales of consumer goods, so workers had saved
their paychecks in record numbers. Once the restrictions were lifted, the country erupted
in a frenzy of consumerism as people spent their savings on everything from toasters and
washing machines to cars and new houses.
The automobile is a fitting symbol for this period of rapid postwar growth. The number
of cars nationwide increased 133 percent between 1945 and 1960, with many families
adding a second vehicle. Cars, in tum, gave people mobility and enabled them to move
out from the city core to the suburbs. A staggering 1.2 million Americans left the city for
the suburbs every year during the 1950s until one-quarter of the population lived in
suburbia by 1960. This transformation was fueled not only by the automobile but also by
a severe lack of housing nationwide which forced more than 2 million married couples to
live with relatives in 1948. Loans through the Veterans Administration (VA) or Federal
Housing Administration (FHA) stimulated a massive construction program.62
Another major factor in these profound changes was the rapid increase in population
during the postwar years. As returning veterans married and settled down, they started a
baby boom that lasted the next twenty years. The population of the United States grew
by 19 million in the 1940s, a healthy increase over the pervious decade. But it then shot
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up by close to 30 million in the 1950s. This huge increase in the number of children had
ripple effects that are still felt today. An obvious need was for new schools to handle the
increased emollment -10 million in the 1950s -as the early baby boomers moved into
the school systems. Families during this period became more child-centered, a trend that
was reflected in new homes with more bedrooms than earlier houses as well as kid-
friendly spaces like family rooms or dens. Despite the stereotype of the stay-at-home
mom of the 1950s, women moved into the workforce in large numbers durinf that decade
so that by 1960 there were twice the number ofworking women as in 1940.6
During the Postwar Expansion Phase, growth in Bozeman reflected these nationwide
trends. The city physically expanded its boundaries as new subdivisions sprouted around
the periphery in all directions, with new commercial corridors to serve the new residential
areas. In 1960, Bozeman included 2,640 acres and during the next decade, it nearly
doubled to more than 5,000 acres. As the city expanded outward, mileage in the city
street system increased as well, rising from forty miles in 1950 to forty-eight miles in
1961 and then, in a spurt of growth, increasing to sixty-five miles in 1970. Paving of city
streets was an ongoing project during this period; just nineteen miles were paved in 1950
but this increased to fifty miles twenty years later. These new streets added not only
mileage but also variety to the established grid of square blocks since developers of new
subdivisions often preferred curving streets to add a more casual, rural feel to a housing
development. This period of growth encouraged the city to hire its first city planner in
the late 1950s. S. R. DeBoer worked in conjunction with a planninf board appointed in
1957. Residents were slow to see the need for planning, however.6
The population of Bozeman increased dramatically during this same period. The number
of city residents grew by 65 percent between 1950 and 1970, from 11,325 to 18,670;
much ofthis increase came after 1960 when the population was just 13,361. Gallatin
County saw similar growth, rising from 21,902 in 1950 to 32,505 just twenty years later.
Developers carved new subdivisions out of farmland at the edge of Bozeman, expanding
growth well beyond the city limits.65
Many ofthe new homes built in Bozeman in the late 1940s and early 1950s were
designed in the Minimal Traditional style. This had been the most popular style
nationwide just prior to World War II and once building resumed, it continued its
prominence into the early 1950s. These modest homes drew on elements of the earlier
Tudor style and often included a prominent front-facing gabled wing or ell and a large
chimney. But the designs were generally smaller in scale than Tudor houses, with a
lower pitch to the roof, closely cropped eaves, and minimal detailing.66
Minimal Traditional houses were popular in postwar Bozeman. Some are found as infill
homes constructed on vacant lots in older neighborhoods or at the edge of these areas.
Others are seen in higher concentrations that reflect the city's expansion during this
period. One such area is the 400 block ofNorth 4th Avenue between Villard and Short
streets with houses dating from the early 1950s. Most are modest one-story or one-and-a-
half story frame houses set above full basements. Lots in the neighborhood are relatively
small and reflect its blue-collar origins. The house at 410 North 4th A venue is a good
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example of this 1950s style. The frame home is topped with a side gable roof; a front-
facing cross-gable spans two-thirds of the facade and shelters a second gabled projection
over the front window and door. Windows are simple one-over-one sash. The horizontal
weatherboard siding contrasts with the vertical boards in the front gable, where each
board terminates in a point to give a zigzag decoration.
As the Minimal Traditional style began to fade in popularity, another rose to take its
place and continued as a prominent style through the remainder of the Postwar Expansion
Phase. Ranch houses originated with California architects prior to World War II. Their
increase in popularity following the war was tied to the spread of the automobile. Newer
developments in the suburbs tended to have larger lots, which allowed for the sprawling
new design. Attached carports or garages further accentuate the facade width, one of the
key design elements of the Ranch house. The one-story homes usually have an
asymmetrical design and low-pitched roof. Roof styles vary and can be side-gabled,
cross-gabled, or hipped; the eave overhang is moderate to wide and may be boxed or
open. Some Ranch houses are quite plain while others have decorative porch supports,
shutters, or other ornamentation. Large picture windows are common since they came
into vogue with the Ranch house, particularly in living rooms. Other windows are set
singly or frequently in a continuous line or ribbon.67
Homes along South Willson A venue, from approximately Garfield Street to Kagy
Boulevard, were built in the 1960s. The streetscape illustrates the move away from the
earlier pattern of the perpendicular street grid and associated rectangular lots. Willson
A venue starts to curve south of Grant Street, arcing southwesterly toward its terminus at
Kagy Blvd. Lots in this neighborhood are wide. Driveways provide direct access to
garages from Willson instead of from an alley as is seen in older neighborhoods.
The design ofthe one-story home at 1602 South Willson Avenue, built in 1962, includes
typical Ranch elements. The facade width is emphasized with the addition of a two-car
garage connected to the house by a breezeway. The low-pitched hipped roof with wide
eaves continues the horizontal emphasis, as do the bands of windows set high in the
walls. Farther down the street at 1805 South Willson A venue, another Ranch house
illustrates the more whimsical variation of the style. Constructed in 1964, the one-story
frame house has the typical low, horizontal massing topped with a side-gable roof. The
attached garage has a prominent gable roof that faces front. Its exceptionally wide eaves
are supported by scalloped braces with a similar scalloping pattern continued in the fascia
boards. The gable peak of the garage displays a non-functional birdhouse. The
curvilinear theme is continued in the horizontal siding with a wavy edge and the curved
balusters on the porch railing.
The Split Level style grew out of the Ranch house design in the 1950s, and it became
increasingly common in the next two decades. These homes generally have a two-story
component adjoining a one-story unit, with the two offset by half a story to give the home
three different living levels. These allowed for a child-centered family room on the lower
level, general family areas on the mid-level, and sleeping rooms on the upper level. The
attached garage. usually adjoins the lower level. Designs retain the horizontal emphasis
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of the Ranch house with its low-pitched roof and wide eave overhangs. Siding material
often contrasts from one level to the next, with brick on one level and horizontal
weatherboard above. 68
The large Split Level home at 1431 South 3rd Avenue presents a slightly different version
from the one described above. The main block of the home has two levels, with the
living area upstairs and the sleeping area in the half-basement lower level. Attached at
mid-level is the entry room, with the attached two-car garage set just slightly lower. The
large garage and main living block are both topped by shallow hipped roofs with wide
overhanging eaves, while the recessed entry has a smaller roof. A bank of picture
windows lines the living room facade above a ribbon of smaller casement windows in the
lower level. The house is clad with wide weatherboard siding up to the mid-point of the
upper level. At this point, it changes to narrow vertical boards that provide a subtle
contrast to the main body of the house.
The Contemporary style is also found in numerous Bozeman houses dating from the
1950s and 1960s, primarily in newer south-side neighborhoods. Such houses, usually
designed by an architect, retain the low, horizontal massing popular in the period. Roofs
are usually either flat or with a wide, low-pitched gable that faces the facade. Both roof
styles highlight exposed beams and other supports. Wall cladding varies and is often a
mix of masonry and wood; detailing is minimal. 69
One of the earlier examples of this style is the modest one-story frame house at 1310
South 3rd A venue. Built in 1952, it has two primary blocks: the residence, topped by an
almost-flat shed roofthat slopes slightly to the left, and the one-car garage which projects
to the front and is topped by a shed roof that slopes slightly to the right. The main roof
overlaps the garage roof near the house-garage juncture. A ribbon of windows crosses
the center facade, with another along the garage wall. Siding is wide horizontal
weatherboards that contrast with the vertical board and battens in the center facade. Trim
is minimal.
Another early Contemporary house, dating from 1958, is found at 1548 South Grand
A venue. The one-story frame house presents a wide facade to the street, with a two-car
garage extension at the right end. It is topped with a shallow-pitched, front-facing gable
roof with exposed beams. The facade to the left of the front door is recessed and the
front eave angles back to meet the new roofline. The front door is flanked by a sidelight
the same size as the door, and both are topped with large square fixed-pane windows that
provide sunlight to the front entry. Other windows are casement or awning styles.
The one-story home at 1611 South Willson A venue, built in 1963, has the feel of a Ranch
house with its side-gabled wing and low-pitched roof. But the front-facing gabled ell,
with its distinctive support beams exposed, is typical of the Contemporary styles. The
lower walls of this wing are sided in narrow red brick to match the massive chimney; the
brick is laid in vertical columns, providing an added design element. It contrasts with the
wood above and the wide weatherboard siding of the remainder of the home.
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While most Americans aspired to own their own home, many were unable to fulfill that
dream. Mobile homes provided an affordable option, either to buy or to rent. Bozeman
had three trailer courts in 1961 and six by 1970. One ofthese six was the North Willson
Courts, which had evolved from the late-1920s cabin camp for tourists into a trailer court.
It continues to operate today (2008). 70
During the Postwar Expansion Phase, the nation's increasing dependence on the
automobile influenced commercial building just as it did residential development.
Consumers began to avoid the older downtown commercial centers with their insufficient
parking areas and instead started to patronize newer shopping centers being built on the
edges of cities and in the new suburbs. These new commercial developments were a
significant break with the past. While the traditional downtown business district
contained rows of buildings with adjoining facades fronting on the sidewalk, the new
shopping areas featured stores that were either freestanding or adjoining others, set back
from the main streets, and surrounded by large open parking lots. With easy free parking,
these new stores and malls began to pull customers away from downtown.71
As downtown areas drifted into decline in the postwar years, merchants and building
owners tried to stop the slide by once again modernizing the historic facades. Some
buildings got a new look on the ground floor only to minimize the cost and maximize the
impact to the window-shopping public. Other edifices were completely redone, with new
facades that hid the historic fabric. Finally, other historic buildings were razed to make
room either for a new structure or for off-street parking, an ever-increasing pressure on
downtown centers.
During the postwar years, Bozeman continued to grow and prosper as a regional market
and commercial center for Gallatin County and beyond. Such growth brought frequent
changes to the business district, such as the installation of new facades and windows in
existing buildings. Alterations in lower facades usually involved replacement of original
windows with large plate glass storefronts. Glass doors added to the modem look, as did
narrow-brick veneers set in the wall below the storefront windows. Several other Main
Street buildings saw their entire historic fa9ades covered my modem materials; now, in
the 21st century, some of these historic fa9ades are being uncovered and restored.
A later remodel ofthe 1920 U.S. Bank building, 104 East Main Street, produced a
completely modem look. The five-story structure is essentially a two-part vertical block,
with the first story distinct from the homogenous upper floors. The ground floor features
dark textured or pebbled concrete walls punctuated by pairs of inset windows in full-
story, curvilinear white window surrounds that contrast starkly with the dark walls. The
upper floors project over the ground level and have strong vertical pilasters dividing the
glass walls into bays along both primary elevations. A wide white cornice band limits the
upward thrust and caps the building.
The First Security Bank, 208 East Main Street, was constructed in 1960 on a comer lot.
The two-story building is set back from both streets, distinguishing it from its historic
neighbors and turning the front sidewalk into a small plaza. While the U.S. Bank
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building emphasizes vertical lines, the First Security design features strong horizontal
bands. The first floor is a glass wall while the second floor on the facade is mostly a tall
band of pebbled concrete panels beneath a ribbon window band. On the side facing
South Bozeman Avenue, a balcony/canopy projects over the landscaping, anchored by
right-angle supports extending out from the roof. The balcony wall has a band of
rectangular panels that appear to float above the sidewalk. (This building is scheduled
for replacement in 2008-09.)
While parts ofthe downtown core were getting a facelift during the 1950s and 1960s, the
main thrust of new construction was at the outer edges of the town. These edges
extended farther each year in conjunction with new development. For instance, the west
end ofMain Street ended just past 8th Avenue in 1950, according to the Polk directory.
By 1961, it had moved to 151h A venue where the new Buttrey's Shopping Center was
located. Just one year later, West Main had pushed farther west in a new alignment,
curving southwest and joining West College Street to form Huffine Lane, which then
continued westward across the valley floor.
The GM auto and truck dealership of Robert F. Dye was one of the largest businesses that
settled at the outer limits of West Main Street. Dye moved his business to 1919 West
Main, now Billion Auto Group, ca. 1968 from his earlier long-time location at.512 East
Main. The Bozeman architectural firm of 0. Berg and Associates designed the new
building with a distinctive futuristic motif. The auto showroom is a circular structure
eighty feet in diameter. On the exterior of the building, large curving ribs arc upward
from the lower walls to terminate well above the projecting flat roof, imparting a
dynamic sense of potential energy. The dramatic desi9n ofthe showroom overshadows
the modest wing of shop bays that extend to the north. 2 (A 2008 proposal for
redevelopment of the site includes the planned removal of the former Dye buildings.)
Two smaller structures downtown continued the futuristic designs of the new space age.
The circular design ofthe First Security Bank drive-up area, with its cluster of three
"mushrooms," suggests a cluster of spaceships just ready for takeoff. It was a fitting
design concept for a period obsessed with space travel. Just up the street is a small
display building known locally as the "snowflake." Built by a U.S. Bank predecessor, the
small octagonal building has metal-framed glass walls topped with a series of gable roofs.
Outside of the downtown core, much of the commercial development of the Postwar
Expansion Phase concentrated on or near Main Street, both east and west of downtown,
and along North th A venue. Since the 1920s, transcontinental U.S. Route 10 passed
through Bozeman along this route, entering the city on East Main and continuing
westward through downtown and then north on 7th. This became a corridor with
businesses catering to both local residents and travelers from afar. The postwar economy
led to a growing number of auto-related businesses, from car and truck repair shops to
sales lots and gas stations. The new concept of drive-ins led to construction of Colonel's
Drive Inn, 1104 East Main, by 1956, and the A&W Root Beer Drive In, 1013 West
College Street, five years later.
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Americans began driving greater distances as roads improved nationwide. A big push
came after Congress passed the Highways Act of 1956. It came with an appropriation of
$32 billion which led to the construction of 41,000 miles of highways. The new federal
interstate highway system reached Bozeman by the 1960s, although initially in short,
disconnected segments. I-90, which largely followed the route ofU.S. 10, was completed
both east and west of Bozeman by 1970. The segment to the north of the city was not
finished for another year, however, forcing motorists to follow the old route along Main
and North 7th until1971. By then, the new interstate provided a divided highway with
1. . d 73 1m1te access.
As in previous periods, the increase in automobile travel generated new businesses that
catered to the rising number of car owners and tourists. Gas stations multiplied from
twenty-one in 1950 to twenty-nine in 1961 and to forty by 1970. While these facilities
concentrated on East and West Main near the downtown center for many years, they
began to move outward with the 1950s. In 1956, they stretched east to the United
Gaseteria at 1205 East Main and west to the Carter Servicenter at 720 West Main. Five
years later, there was a Famous Brands gas station at 1601 West Main. New service
stations advanced northward on th A venue as well, with four clustered near the new
interstate highway by 1970.74
Motels also increased along the same routes in the postwar years. The most dramatic
growth came in the 1950s. The decade started with a total of eight motels which
increased to thirteen by 1961. Another was added by 1970. Most ofthe growth along
Main Street clustered at the east end of town, near the already established Bozeman Auto
Camp, which continued to operate at least through 1961. Mountain View Courts (1 010
East Main) appeared by 1950, the Ranch House Motel (1201 East Main) by 1956, and the
Alpine Lodge (1017 East Main) by 1965. Unlike the east end cluster, two new motels
were built in the 1960s closer to downtown Bozeman. The appropriately-named City
Center Motel (507 West Main) was in business at least by 1961 and was joined by the
Imperial400 (122 West Main) in 1963. Other motels were constructed along North th
Avenue, stretching northward as the city expanded toward the new interstate.75
Unlike hotels, which initially catered to train or bus travelers, motels marketed their
accommodations to the auto tourist. They were located along a main highway, with units
set back from the road to allow for parking. Rooms were arranged in either a linear, L-
shaped, or U-shaped plan, in one-or two-story blocks. The 1963 Imperial400, part of a
nationwide chain, followed a standard company plan. The two-story motel has units set
in a modified U-plan. Each room has a door and large set of windows, arranged
symmetrically so that the first story an exact image of the second. A covered walkway,
enclosed with a simple metal railing and balusters, provides access to the second story as
well as shelter for the sidewalk below. The office is located in the short leg of the U-plan
adjacent to the highway, with a covered drive-through adjoining the office entrance.
The number of churches increased considerably during the postwar period, growing from
seventeen in 1950 to twenty-eight in 1970. These new buildings exhibited a variety of
modem designs, from the restrained lines ofthe First Church of Christ Scientist (502
Bozeman, Montana Historic Context page41
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South gth A venue) to the exuberant upward sweep of the the Christus Collaegium (714
South gth A venue). 76
Bozeman's dependence on agricultural manufacturing lessened in the Postwar Expansion
Phase. The Gallatin Seed Company, the sole survivor of three seed companies, closed ca.
1961. The related cannery had ended its operations in 1958. Montana Flour Mills which,
with its predecessor companies, had milled flour for eighty-three years, ended production
in 1967. Perhaps related to these closures, the number of Bozeman businesses selling
agricultural implements dropped from six in 1950 to just two in 1970.77
One survivor in the fading agricultural sector was the Gallatin Cooperative Creamery. It
continued to grow and prosper until it outgrew its original facility. The cooperative
constructed a new office and bulk plant at 1001 North 7th Avenue ca. 1957. The
creamery, whose name changed to Darigold in the early 1960s, became the largest milk
processing plant in Montana, with forty-seven dairy farms within twenty-five miles of
Bozeman.7
As a celebration of the region's agricultural heritage, the Bozeman Stock Show
Association put on a livestock show in 1945. It was so successful that the Bozeman
Chamber of Commerce and the Extension Service worked with local ranchers and stock
raisers to make this an annual event. The Montana Winter Fair was established in 1946
and it remains popular enough to draw a large number of visitors to Bozeman each year.79
Although agricultural manufacturing waned in the postwar period, several wood product
industries rose in its place. These included the Idaho Pole Company plant in Bozeman,
which opened in 1946; the pulpwood plant at Gallatin Gateway, started in 1947 by the
Corcorans of Wisconsin; and the Yellowstone Pine Company in Belgrade, which began
producing pine paneling and laminated beams in 1955.80
The rapid growth of Bozeman during the Postwar Expansion Phase led to the
construction of several new schools to accommodate an ever-increasing number of
students. The school district built a new high school on West Main Street in 1957 and
expanded it just six years later. Bozeman High School is a sprawling campus with a
series of one-story red brick classroom units with banks of large windows sheltered under
wide overhanging eaves. In 1965, the district constructed a new junior high school on
land adjacent to the north side of the high school. The two-story main unit is set into a
bank on the south side so that the ground level comes up to with window sills. The two-
part facade exposes two full stories. Elementary schools expanded with the addition of
Whittier School, on west Peach Street.
The presence of government and its services visibly increased in Bozeman during this
same postwar period. The U.S. government, long an important player in the American
West, completed a large office complex in 1966 on the south side of the business district.
The federal building, on West Babcock, stands five stories tall and extends nearly a block
in length. The first story of this two-part commercial block is essentially all glass, topped
with a horizontal band. The upper walls have square windows above solid square panels.
Bozeman, Montana Historic Context page42
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The verticality is emphasized by double pilasters dividing the facade into multiple bays,
with single pilasters further separating each bay into four vertical segments. A narrow
band caps the building at the flat roofline. Federal agencies housed there in 1967
represented locally prominent functions of the U.S. government and included the post
office on the ground floor; the Department of Agriculture (Gallatin National Forest
Supervisor's Office, Soil Conservation Service, County Extension Demonstration
Kitchen); and the Selective Service System draft board.
In 1965, the City of Bozeman moved its offices from the City Hall-Opera House (built in
1888, demolished in 1966) at Main and Rouse to a new city hall located diagonally across
the street intersection. The modest one-story brick building with wide, overhanging
cornice band, contrasted starkly with its more elaborate predecessor. At the same time,
the city also constructed new buildings for the fire and police departments behind the city
hall.
Under the dynamic leadership of Dr. Roland R. Renne, president of Montana State
College from 1943-1964, Bozeman's most important institution grew in every possible
way. Campus acreage doubled as it expanded one mile westward and one-half mile
southward. The curricula multiplied, as did the degree programs. Faculty increased from
132 in the 1944-1945 year to 389 twenty years later, trying to keep pace with the student
population that swelled from 1,155 to 5,250 in the same period. This spurt of growth
culminated in the new designation as Montana State University in 1965.81
Returning veterans had an enormous impact on the campus, nearly doubling the number
of students by 1946. Encouraged by the 1944 G.I. Bill of Rights, this temporary surge of
students stretched campus housing. Officials met these needs with emergency solutions
that were intended to be temporary but instead served for decades. These structures,
purchased with $50,000 earned through military training programs, included trailers,
prefab war service buildings, Quonset huts, and a "hudson type" dormitory.82
A major construction program from the late 1940s through the 1960s transformed the
campus, both in extent and skyline profile. Despite the critical housing needs, the first
new building was the Renne Library, completed in 1950. The vertical lines of its six-bay
facade are emphasized by the concrete pilasters, solid brick side bays, and the tall glass
walls of the center three bays. Numerous classroom and laboratory buildings followed,
their rectangular, flat-roofed massing contrasting with the earlier gabled buildings.83
One of the most unusual facilities ofthe postwar years was the 1958 Breeden Field
House. Although President Renne promoted the project, critics derided it as "Rollie's
Folly" for its grandiose scale, with room enough to seat 8,400 people-far more than the
student population. Local Bozeman architects Oswald E. Berg, Jr., and Fred J. Willson
designed the circular building with a 300-foot diameter and 90 foot height. The domed
roof, supported by clear span wooden beams, was touted as the largest such structure in
existence. Once it opened, huge crowds filled it for athletic events and vindicated
Renne's idea. In the decades since, it has hosted intercollegiate sports, concerts,
powwows, rodeos, trade shows, and famous speakers. 84
Bozeman, Montana Historic Context page43
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Like the classroom buildings of the 1950s, the new dormitories had boxy massing and
flat rooflines. They included Hannon Hall and Lewis and Clark Hall (with its distinctive
four-wing plan), both completed in 1955, and Hapner Hall, finished in 1959. Dormitory
design took a decided upward thrust in the 1960s with the appearance of several tall
towers rising high above the campus. The two Hedges Halls, completed in 1965, rise
eleven stories in height, the vertical lines of the pilasters countered by the alternating
horizontal ribbons of windows and solid walls. The tall, rectangular lines of the towers
are balanced by the low curves of the circular food service building set between the
dorms. An even more unusual tower followed in 1966 with Roskie Hall, a cluster of
three round, connectedtowers that rise eleven stories. 85
Fraternities and sororities offered students an option for off-campus group housing. Over
the years, they were housed in large older homes in the south part of town. A spate of
building in the 1960s replaced many of these older facilities with new fraternity and
sorority houses, set in southside neighborhoods close to the university campus. The
Sigma Chi fraternity house, 722 South Willson A venue, was designed in the popular
Contemporary style. The facade features a pair of two-story wings facing the street, both
topped by shallow-pitched gable roofs with projecting support beams. The dominant left
wing has a plain brick wall broken by a vertical band containing simple two-pane
windows on the basement, first, and second levels, with textured brick panels filling the
wall between the windows. A narrow band of windows fills the gable end. The right
wing contains the main entry to the left of a bank of floor-to-ceiling windows on both
stories. Pairs of slender columns support the wide projecting gable roof as well as second
story balconies which wrap around to the south end.
A more formal design is found in the two-story Pi Beta Phi sorority house, 1304 South 5th
A venue. Its symmetrical facade has four slender brick columns, which rise two full
stories to support the projecting flat roof. The center bay has an enclosed entry on the
first story and a balcony on the second story. The two side bays have plain brick walls
divided by two vertical lines of decorative concrete blocks. The symmetrical side walls
alternate plain brick sections with window sections. Each of the latter features panels of
decorative concrete blocks set between the casement window on each story.
Bozeman, Montana Historic Context page44
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Conclusion
Public Bozeman's heritage has been shaped by many factors over nearly a century and a
half of growth. Since the beginning, its development has been tied to transportation,
from its location along a trail to the arrival of the railroad and then the interstate highway
system. Montana State College, now Montana State University, has provided a major
source of employment for city residents over many decades and the city, in turn, has
adapted to offer living quarters for faculty and students as well as businesses catering to
this population. Bozeman's relationship with the surrounding agricultural region has
stimulated the growth of industries from flour mills to pea canneries. The city's location,
so close to Yellowstone National Park and other popular attractions, has boosted the
tourism sector of the economy. The growth of Bozeman over the years is also tied to
larger national events and trends, such as the boom in population and growth following
World War II. All of these combine to form Bozeman's unique history, which can be
seen in its architectural heritage. The preservation and interpretation ofthis heritage can
help us understand the present in relation to our past.
Bozeman, Montana Historic Context page45
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Bibliography
Books and Pamphlets
Alderson, Matt W. Bozeman: A Guide to its Places of Recreation and a Synopsis of its
Superior Natural Advantages, Industries, and Opportunities. Bozeman: Alderson
& Son, Publishers, 1883.
The Avant Courier Annual Almanac. Bozeman: Alderson & Son, Publishers, 1879.
Burlingame, Merrill G. Gallatin County's Heritage: A Report of Progress 1805-1976.
Bozeman: Gallatin County Bicentennial Publication, 1976.
Burlingame, Merrill G. A History: Montana State University, Bozeman, Montana.
Bozeman: Office oflnformation, Montana State University, 1968.
Chafe, William H. The Unfinished Journey: America Since World War II New York
and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986.
The Coast, vol. 15, No.6, June 1908.
Committee for the Opposition of Courthouse Bonds. "Extra! The Flood of Fallacy
Dissected and Exposed." Belgrade: The Belgrade Journal, c. 1933.
The Gallatin Valley and Bozeman, Montana. Bozeman: Bozeman Chronicle, c. 1906.
Heath, Kingston. "A Dying Heritage: One-Room School Houses of Gallatin County,
Montana," in Perspectives in Vernacular Architecture, Camille Wells, ed.
Annapolis: Vernacular Architecture Forum, 1982.
Hofstadter, Richard. The Age of Reform. New York: Vintage Books, 1955.
Houston, E. Lina. Early History of Gallatin County, Montana. Bozeman: Sons and
Daughters ofthe Pioneers of Gallatin County, 1933.
Howard, Joseph Kinsey. "The Decline and Fall of Burton K. Wheeler," in The Montana
Past: An Anthology, Malone and Roeder, eds. Missoula: University of Montana
Press, 1969.
Longstreth, Richard. The Buildings of Main Street: A Guide to American Commercial
Architecture. Washington, D.C., The Preservation Press, 1987.
Malone, Michael P. and Roeder, Richard B. Montana: A History ofTwo Centuries.
Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1976.
Bozeman, Montana Historic Context page46
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McAlester, Virginia and Lee. A Field Guide to American Houses. New York: Alfred A.
Knopf, 1984.
McGill Museum Publication No. 3, The Journals of Lewis and Clark at the Three Forks:
Clark's Journey across the Gallatin Valley 1805-1806. Bozeman: Montana State
College, 1964.
The Radford American Homes: 100 House Plans. Riverside, Illinois: The Radford
Architectural Company, 1903.
Renne, Roland R. A Preliminary Report of the Butte Economy Survey. The City of
Butte, 1939.
Rowley, William D. M L. Wilson and the Campaign for the Domestic Allotment.
Lincoln: University ofNebraska Press, 1970.
Rydell, Robert, Jeffrey Safford, and Pierce Mullan. In the People's Interest: A
Centennial history of Montana State University. Bozeman: Montana State
University Foundation, 1992.
Smith, Phyllis. Bozeman and the Gallatin Valley: A History. Guilford, Connecticut:
The Globe Pequot Press, 2002.
Withom, Bill and Doris. Photo History of Livingston-Bozeman Coal Country.
Livingston: Livingston Enterprise, n.d.
Articles
"Bozeman and its Surroundings." The Rockies Illustrated Magazine, vol. 4, No.9,
September 1982.
Dunbar, Robert G. "The Economic Development ofthe Gallatin Valley." Pacific
Northwest Quarterly, vol. 47, No.4, October 1956.
"First Lights of Bozeman Prove Quite a Curiosity." Bozeman Daily Chronicle,
December 27, 1970.
"The Gallatin Valley, Montana" The Coast, vol. 15, No.6, June 1908.
Linfield, F. B. "The Egypt of America." The Montana Homeseeker, vol. 1, No. 1 June 15,
1906.
Bozeman, Montana Historic Context page47
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Livingston, W. W. "Electric Power in Gallatin County." The Coast, vol. 15, No.6, June
1908.
Malone, Michael P. "The Gallatin Canyon and the Tides of History." Montana the
Magazine ofWestern History, Vol. XXIII, No.3, July, 1970.
Swett, Ira. "The Montana Trolleys III." Interurbans Magazine, 1970.
Government Documents
Agricultural Experiment Station Bulletins.
Claim Association ofthe Upper East Gallatin, Minutes, August 9, 1864-January 21,
1865.
Land-Grant College Association Publications.
U.S.D.A. Publications.
Unpublished Material
Flanders, George W. "A History of the Flanders Saw Mill." Manuscript File 1104,
Special Collections, Montana State University Library, Bozeman, Montana.
Scoville, Gordon. "Anti-Democracy's College: The Culture of Organized Social
Machinery and the Leadership of the Land-Grant Agricultural Colleges in the
Progressive Era." Ed. D. dissertation in the process, Montana State University.
Willson, Fred F. Job List, Collection of Bill Grabow.
Newspapers
Bozeman Avant Courier, September 5, 1891.
Bozeman Daily Chronicle, January 1, 1932; Centennial Edition, Part I, March 27, 1983;
Centennial Edition, Part II, March 28, 1983; Centennial Edition, Part III, March
29, 1983; Centennial Edition, Part IV, March 30, 1983.
Bozeman Republican-Courier, January 19-March 16, 1906.
Bozeman, Montana Historic Context page48
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Endnotes
1 Phyllis Smith, Bozeman and the Gallatin Valley: A History (Guilford, Connecticut: The Globe Pequot
Press, 2002), 13-19; Merrill G. Burlingame, Gallatin County's Heritage: A Report of Progress, 1805-1976
(Bozeman: Gallatin County Bicentennial Publication, 1976), 2.
2 Burlingame, Gallatin County's Heritage, 2-1 0; Smith, Bozeman and the Gallatin Valley, 46-50.
3 Burlingame, Gallatin County's Heritage, 4-6; Smith, Bozeman and the Gallatin Valley, 51-58.
4 Minutes, Claim Association of the Upper East Gallatin, August 9, 1864-January 21, 1865.
5 Burlingame, Gallatin County's Heritage, 6, 34; E. Lina Houston, Early History of Gallatin County
(Bozeman: Sons and Daughters of the Pioneers of Gallatin County, 1933), 19-20,27-29.
6 Burlingame, Gallatin County's Heritage, 6, 90; Houston, Early History ofGallatin County, 19-20.
7 Houston, Early History of Gallatin County, 25.
8 Ibid., 54.
9 Analysis based on photographic evidence.
10 Burlingame, Gallatin County's Heritage, 6, 10; Smith, Bozeman and the Gallatin Valley, 101-105;
George W. Flanders, Jr., "A History of the Flanders Saw Mill," 9-10, Manuscript File 1104, Special
Collections, Montana State University Library, Bozeman.
11 The Journals of Lewis and Clark at the Three Forks: Clark's Journey Across the Gallatin Valley 1805-
1806, McGill Museum Publication No.3 (Bozeman: Montana State College, 1964), 6.
12 Analysis based on photographic evidence.
13 In 1872, the Avant Courier (established in 1871) announced the need for 800,000 bricks for construction
of several business blocks on Main Street, including those of Colonel Black (218-228 East Main) and Frank
Harper, a blacksmith (237 East Main). Although William Tracy's brickyard was making bricks as rapidly
as possible, it was unable to meet the growing demand. Editor W. W. Alderson urged other brickmakers to
establish in Montana.
14 Burlingame, Gallatin County's Heritage, 26.
15 Houston, Early History of Gallatin County, 26.
16 Ibid., 28-31; Smith, Bozeman and the Gallatin Valley, 96-97.
17 Houston, Early History of Gallatin County, 32-35.
18 Ibid., 43, 51.
19 Avant Courier, April4, 1872.
20 "Bozeman and its Surroundings," The Rockies Illustrated Magazine, vol. 4, no. 9 (September 1892), 153-
170; Burlingame, Gallatin County's Heritage, 90-93.
21 Houston, Early History of Gallatin County, 26-29.
22 Matt W. Alderson, Bozeman: A Guide to its Places of Recreation and a Synopsis of its Superior Natural
Advantages, Industries, and Opportunities (Bozeman: Alderson and Son, Publishers, 1883), 53.
23 Avant Courier, September 5, 1891. Evidence is inconclusive on the question ofthe exact structure which
burned in the Story Mill fire. The 1882 structure may have been replaced by other frame buildings before
the fire occurred, or the 1882 mill may have been located at a different site from the structures which
burned.
24 "Bozeman and its Surroundings," The Rockies Illustrated Magazine, 153-170; "First Lights of Bozeman
Prove Quite a Curiosity," Bozeman Daily Chronicle, December 27, 1970; W. W. Livingston, "Electricity
Power in Gallatin County," The Coast, vol. 15, no. 6 (June 1908), 430-431; Burlingame, Gallatin County's
Heritage, 26-34; Bill and Doris Whithom, Photo History of Livingston-Bozeman Coal Country
(Livingston: Livingston Enterprise, n.d.); Ira Swett, "Montana's Trolleys IlL" Interurbans Magazine
(1970), 26-43.
25 "The Gallatin Valley, Montana," The Coast, vol. 15, no. 6 (June 1908), 478-479; R. L. Polk & Co., of
Montana, Bozeman City and Gallatin County Directory, 1910-11 (Helena: R. L. Polk & Co., 191 0), 378.
City directories are hereinafter referred to as "Polk Directory."
26 Ibid., 426.
27 Ibid., 388.
Bozeman, Montana Historic Context page49
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28 Ibid, 426.
29 Polk Directory, 1910-11: 417, 1922: 244, 1931: 282, 1940: 263, 1950: 281.
30 Bozeman Republican-Courier, January 19, 1906 through March 16, 1906.
31 The Gallatin Valley and Bozeman, Montana (Bozeman: Bozeman Chronicle, c. 1906), 7.
32 The Radford American Homes: 100 House Plans (Riverside, Illinois: The Radford Architectural
Company, 1903), 3-4.
33 Richard Hofstadter, The Age of Reform (New York: Vintage Books, 1955), 5.
34 Robert G. Dunbar, "The Economic Development of the Gallatin Valley," Pacific Northwest Quarterly,
vol. 47, no. 4 (October 1956), 119-121.
35 Michael P. Malone and Richard B. Roeder, Montana: A History of Two Centuries (Seattle: University of
Washington Press, 1976), 214.
36 Polk Directory, 1922:258, 1931:261, 1940:249, 1950: 270, 1961: 61, 1970: 47-48; Sanborn Map
Company, Map ofBozeman, Gallatin Co., Mont. (New York: Sanborn Map Co., 1912), 2; 1927: 2. Such
maps are hereinafter referred to as "Sanborn Map." .
37 Merrill G. Burlingame, A History: Montana State University, Bozeman, Montana (Bozeman: Office of
Information, Montana State University, 1968), 133.
38 Summary based on Agricultural Experiment Station bulletins, other U.S.D.A. and Land-Grant College
Association publications; and Gordon Scoville, "Anti-Democracy College: The Culture of Organized
Social Machinery and the Leadership of the Land-Grant Agricultural colleges in the Progressive Era,"
Ed.D. dissertation in progress, Montana State University.
39 Burlingame, A History: Montana State University; Burlingame, Gallatin County's Heritage, 98.
40 Michael P. Malone, "The Gallatin Canyon and the Tides ofHistory," Montana, The Magazine of Western
History, vol. 23, no. 3 (July 1973), 11.
41 Burlingame, Gallatin County's Heritage, 27.
42 Nancy F. Renk, "Off to the Lakes: Summer Tourism in Northern Idaho, 1883-1940" (M.A. thesis,
University ofldaho, 1992), 100, 104, 110.
43 Polk Directory, 1910-11: 380, 382-383, 385, 1922: 218-220, 222-223.
44 Renk, "Offto the Lakes," 113, 122.
45 Ibid, 127-131.
46 Fred F. Willson, job list, collection of Bill Grabow; Sanborn Map, 1943: 7; Polk Directory, 1931: 301,
1940:275,1950:292,1956:27.
47 Fred F. Willson, job list, collection of Bill Grabow.
48 Burlingame, Gallatin County's Heritage, 34.
49 Kingston Heath, "A Dying Heritage: One Room Schools of Gallatin County, Montana," in Perspective in
Vernacular Architecture, Camille Wells, ed., (Annapolis: Vernacular Architecture Forum, 1982), 201-216.
5° Committee for Opposition of Courthouse Bonds, "Extra! The Flood ofFallacy Dissected and Exposed"
(Belgrade: The Belgrade Journal, c. 1933).
51 Malone and Roeder, Montana: A History of Two Centuries, 226-227.
52 Joseph Kinsey Howard, "The Decline and Fall of Burton K. Wheeler," in The Montana Past: An
Anthology, Michael P. Malone and Richard B. Roeder, eds. (Missoula: University ofMontana Press, 1970),
23.
53 William D. Rowley, M L. Wilson and the Campaign for the Domestic Allotment (Lincoln: University of
Nebraska Press, 1970), 278.
54 Burlingame, A History: Montana State University, 141-142; Roland R. Renne, A Preliminary Report of
the Butte Economic Survey (The City ofButte, 1939).
55 Smith, Bozeman and the Gallatin Valley, 248-250; Bozeman Daily Chronicle, January 1, 1932; Polk
Directory, 1931: 273, 1940:257.
56 Bozeman Daily Chronicle, January 1, 1932; Bozeman Daily Chronicle, Centennial Edition, Part II,
March 28, 1983, 15; Smith, Bozeman and the Gallatin Valley, 278; Kenneth W. Bailey, Marketing and
Pricing of Milk and Dairy Products in the United States (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1997): 142.
57 PolkDirectory, 1931:275,301, 1940:259,275;SanbornMap, 1943:18,30.
58 Burlingame, A History: Montana State University, 100.
59 Ibid, 84-89.
60 Bozeman Daily Chronicle, Centennial Edition, Part III, March 29, 1983,6.
61 Ibid, Part I, March 27, 1983, 14.
Bozeman, Montana Historic Context page 50
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62 William H. Chafe, The Unfinished Journey: America Since World War II (New York and Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1986), 117-118.
63 Ibid., 123, 126.
64 Polk Directory, 1950: 12, 1956: xii, 1961: vii, 1965: xii, 1970: xvi; Smith, 272,287.
65 Smith, 299.
66 Virginia and Lee McAlester, A Field Guide to American Houses (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1984),
477-478.
67 McAlester, 477, 479.
68 McAlester, 481.
69 Ibid., 477, 482.
70 Polk Directory, 1970: 97.
71 Richard Longstreth, The Buildings of Main Street: A Guide to American Commercial Architecture
(Washington, D.C.: The Preservation Press, 1987), 126-127.
72 The building permit, issued on 8-15-67, provided the names ofboth the architect as well as the builder,
Emil Martel and Son.
73 Chafe, The Unfinished Journey, 119; personal communication, Jon Axline to Mark Hufstetler, November
1, 2007.
74 Polk Directory, 1950: 277-278, 1961: 77-78, 1970: 65-66.
75 Polk Directory, 1950: 292, 1961: 90, 1970: 79.
76 Polk Directory, 1950: 271, 1970: 51.
77 Smith, Bozeman and the Gallatin Valley, 248-251; Polk Directory, 1950:265-266, 1970:40.
78 Smith, Bozeman and the Gallatin Valley, 278.
79 Bozeman Daily Chronicle, Centennial Edition, Part IV, March 30, 1983, 9; Burlingame, A History:
Montana State University, 185-186.
80 Dunbar, "The Economic Development of the Gallatin Valley," 122.
81 Robert Rydell, Jeffrey Safford, and Pierce Mullen, In the People's Interest: A Centennial History of
Montana State University (Bozeman: Montana State University Foundation, 1992), 59-51, 64.
82 Ibid., 62-63; Burlingame, A History: Montana State University, 185-186.
83 Rydell et al., In the People's Interest, 309-310.
84 Ibid., 208, 309.
85 Ibid., 309-310.
Bozeman, Montana Historic Context page 51