Montana

Built as the Elite Hotel, this structure is prominently sited on the corner of Park and Second streets in Livingston, a railroad town now known for its large literary population. The hotel is across from the Italianate rail depot (1901–1902, Reed and Stem), which delivered tourists to Yellowstone National Park from points east not long after the Northern Pacific Railroad tracks were laid in 1882. Like many Montana hotels associated with the growth of the railroad, it both prospered and declined with the ebb and flow of tourism to the region’s national parks.

The Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument, formerly known as Custer Battlefield National Monument, spans 765 acres outside of Crow Agency, Montana. The national monument includes the site of the Battle of Little Bighorn, fought between the Seventh Regiment of the United States Cavalry and Lakota Sioux, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho warriors on June 25 and 26, 1876. It also includes Custer National Cemetery and the Reno-Benteen Battlefield.

The Yucca Theatre is a vibrant Mission Revival Style building that served as a theater and residence for David M. Manning, a long-serving senator and local business leader from the small town of Hysham in the southeast corner of Montana. Born in 1897 in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, Manning moved as a child with his family to the community of Hysham in 1910, then a budding homesteading town that had its start as a rail siding along the Northern Pacific Railroad.

In the deeply wooded mountains of the American West, fire is part of the natural balance of life, thinning mature tree stands and rejuvenating the health of the forests. Managing wildland fire has been a primary mission of the U.S. Forest Service since its inception.

Erected in 1898 in Montana’s Bitterroot Forest, the rustic Alta Ranger Station is the oldest known U.S. Forest Service building in the nation. Built with V-notched logs, the cabin is a rudimentary structure typical of late-nineteenth-century frontier buildings. Walls were chinked and daubed to keep out the cold Montana wind; it had a dirt floor and was covered by a sod roof supported on log purlins. Measuring thirteen by fifteen feet, the Alta Ranger Station had just enough room for a ranger to live and carry out a few official duties.

Once the oldest, continuously operating private clubs west of Minneapolis, the Montana Club was incorporated in 1885 “for literary, mutual improvement, and social purposes” with an initial membership of 50 men drawn from the Montana Territory and beyond. By 1891, its roster of attorneys, bankers, mining, livestock and timber magnates, politicians, transportation titans, wholesalers, and self-described “capitalists” had more than quintupled, prompting a plan to move to more expansive and functional space. The club acquired a triangular lot just off Helena’s bustling North Main Street and wit

Montana Territory was founded in 1862, after gold strikes in the creek valleys of this region proved rich and lasting. The gold rush camps of Bannack and Virginia City each served as territorial capitals, as placer mining drew thousands to Montana in 1862 and 1863, respectively. In 1864, gold was struck in Last Chance Gulch and the town of Helena was born.

The Dearborn River High Bridge is thought to be the last example of a pin-connected half-deck truss bridge in the United States. It spans the upper drainage of the Dearborn River as it winds through a narrow canyon. Still in use on a graveled county road, the bridge originally carried horses and wagons, and early automotive traffic. Unlike most steel trusses, where the traveler either passed between and under the truss members or where the trusses were located underneath the deck, the Dearborn River High Bridge is a rare example of a deck attached midway on the trusses.

The Heitman-O’Connell House in Helena is a pristine and exceptional interpretation of the Prairie Style by progressive architects William Purcell and George Elmslie. It is the only Montana building designed by these prolific followers of Frank Lloyd Wright and Louis Sullivan. The organic nature of the house succeeds in blending the habitation with the mountainous setting of Helena’s prominent West Side neighborhood, where the residence stands out as an unusually modern design amid the area’s many Queen Anne mansions.

Soldiers Chapel is located in the Gallatin Canyon near the entrance to the resort community of Big Sky. Nelson Story III, member of a prominent pioneering family in the nearby city of Bozeman, commissioned the building in 1955 as a memorial to his son, Nelson IV, who died in World War II. As stated on a memorial plaque, this non-denominational chapel is dedicated to “Those immortal soldiers of the 163rd Infantry who, with courage and devotion, died in pain defending their country and the cause of freedom for all men.”