Back from the Ashes: Club Moderne in Anaconda

Posted on December 20, 2017 by carrollvanwest

The story of historic preservation is always a story of highs and lows, of achievements and losses. I cannot think of any greater achievement in 2017 than the reopening of the Club Moderne in Anaconda. Montana architect Fred Willson designed this Art Moderne-styled jewel in the height of the Great Depression of the 1930s–life was always tough in the copper smelter town of Anaconda but particularly tough then. The bar found its community, and a community institution it has always been, from the first time I visited it in the 1980s, see below, to when I returned to visit and photograph the building in

2012. Between those 30 years, patrons might have changed, and poker machines might be stuck everywhere but it was undoubtedly a neighborhood institution, always, for me, a place to talk about history and community with those who lived nearby.

The fire that came suddenly in October did not injure anyone–thankfully–but it left an immediate mark on the community soul–would once again Anaconda lose a place that might not be very important to others but was vital to the residents and their sense of identity and place.

Despite the damage and the immediate media stories that the bar had been destroyed, the walls remained standing, and the spirit of the owners and the patrons remained resolute–here was a place that not only mattered but that was worth the effort and the funds to restore, reopen, and resume its service to the community.

No it is not the same place it was before the fall 2016 fire. But it is still worthy of listing in the National Register of Historic Places, and it is ready to serve the community for now and into the future. Quite a save indeed for the town of Anaconda and determined owners.

So in this time of holiday festivities, lift a glass or two or three to the folks in Anaconda for what they achieved in never giving up and giving a second life to a landmark that deserves every bit of attention it gets. Cheers, and happy holidays!

Grain Elevators in the Northern Plains of Montana

Posted on October 8, 2017 by carrollvanwest

Kevin, Montana

When I began my explorations of Montana’s Big Sky Country in the early 1980s one structure particularly captivated me–the grain elevator. Certainly I had encountered these in the east, but in Montana, particularly in the high country of eastern Montana, the looming presence of grain elevators marked settlements both past and present. The elevators might be old and abandoned, like the one above at Kevin in Toole County or concrete and vibrant like the sets below from Glasgow.

But wherever they were located, they spoke of the promise of the homesteading generation and the very different reality of modern corporate agriculture of the second half of the 20th century into the 21st century. Thus, this post does not promise much analysis–I have tackled the topic in other posts–but it does include some of my favorite images of Montana elevators from my field study of 2012-2015.

Laredo, Hill County.

Highwood, Cascade County.

An elevator canyon in Joplin.

Fort Shaw, Cascade County

Fraser elevators and railroad corridors

Made, Daniels County.

Reserve, Sheridan County.

Chouteau Co MT 80 Square Butte elevator 1

Perhaps my favorite image–Square Butte elevators just before a hail storm.

Daniels Co Whitetail elevators Soo Line corridor

Whitetail on the Soo Line Corridor near the Canadian border.

Judith Basin Co Windham elevators corridor - Version 2

Windham, Judith Basin County

Roads Less Traveled in Beaverhead County

Posted on September 4, 2017 by carrollvanwest

Beaverhead County Montana is huge–in its area it is bigger than the states of Rhode Island and Delaware combined, and is roughly the size of Connecticut. Within these vast boundaries in the southwest corner of Montana, less than 10,000 people live, as counted in the 2010 census. As this blog has previously documented, in a land of such vastness, transportation means a lot–and federal highways and the railroad are crucial corridors to understand the settlement history of Beaverhead County.

This post takes another look at the roads less traveled in Beaverhead County, such as Blacktail Creek Road in the county’s southern end. The road leads back into lakes and spectacular scenery framed by the Rocky Mountains.

But along the road you find historic buildings left behind as remnants of ranches now lost, or combined into even larger spreads in the hopes of making it all pay some day.

Birch Creek Road as it winds in and out of Beaverhead National Forest is more populated with the remnants of the past since it is nestled within the mountains where there was always the promise of mineral riches.

Birch Creek Road was shaped by the efforts of the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s as the Corps carried out multiple projects in the national forest. This road has a logical destination–the historic Birch Creek C.C.C. Camp, which has been listed in the National Register of Historic Places. The University of Montana Western uses the property for outdoor education and as a conference center that is certainly away from everything.

There is another historic destination waiting for the intrepid traveler willing to take Canyon Creek Road in the northern end of the county. Although at places harrowing for this easterner, the road is among my favorite in Big Sky Country–for the views, the sense of isolation, and the history found along its route.

The destination is the spectacular collection of Canyon Creek Kilns, previously discussed in the blog, which fed the smelter and mining operations at Glendale. The kilns are worth the time and perhaps worry it takes to drive along Canyon Creek Road.

In such a mammoth county, these three roads are a mere sampling of the routes less traveled but well worth the journey in Beaverhead County, Montana.

Canyon Creek Road, Beaverhead County, Montana.

Montana’s Murals: Creating Identity, Telling Stories in Big Sky Country

Posted on September 3, 2017 by carrollvanwest

A week ago a colleague from Tennessee told me of returning to Cut Bank–a family place that she had not been to in decades–and we talked of what a great, classic town it is, and how the town uses blank walls to tell their own story to the hordes of tourists who pass through on U.S. Highway 2 on their way to Glacier National Park. The homesteader-theme mural is just one of the several that enliven the streets and instruct those who wish to stop, look, think.

Montana’s art and history have always been closely linked as even those in the first generation of settlement commissioned artists, Charles M. Russell and Edgar Paxson, to paint historical murals for the new state capitol building in Helena. Then came the public art commissions of the New Deal era, such as the work of J. K. Raulston (below),

which once hung in the Richland County Courthouse in Sidney (and now displayed at the Mondak Heritage Center in Sidney) and the numerous murals that graced new post offices and federal buildings across Montana, the one below from Dillon demonstrates

that the arts program of the 1930s stretched across Montana, from Sidney to Dillon.

When I lived in Helena in the first half of the 1980s, of course I noticed murals, such as one above on the state’s important women’s history on Last Chance Gulch, which itself had various installations of interpretive sculpture to tell the story of a place that had been so “renewed” as to lose all meaning.

In my second shot at documenting the historic landscape of Montana, in the first half of this decade, I couldn’t help but notice how many places used murals to tell their story, or to hint about what mattered to those who traveled by–they truly were everywhere. On the walls of cafe/bars like at Melrose:

Or they could be at old service stations at once important crossroads, like at Jordan:

Scenes of landscape and animals–the wild side of Montana are common:

A grizzly at Libby, Montana.

Powder River Co Broadus buffalo mural 25

A bison at the Western Chick Cafe in Broadus.

But many tell a story, perhaps no more elaborately than in Columbia Falls, where the historic Masonic Lodge is wrapped in a mural that links the town to its logging beginnings to the establishment of the town and merchants.

Another northwestern Montana town–the gateway town of Eureka on U.S. Highway 89. uses a mural to set the scene of a quiet, peaceful place no matter the season:

Whereas at Troy–another gateway town at the western edge of Montana on U.S. Highway 2–the town name itself is emblazoned on a building–you can’t miss it.

Many towns highlight their history with murals. The one in Townsend (below), on U.S. Highway 12, reminds me of a common heritage-centered art piece found everywhere–a quilt with each square representing a different community or place name.

Others are more pointed in their message. A lone tractor in a field stands out in Chester, the seat of Liberty County:

Wilsall, on U.S. 89 north of Livingston, tells a rather elaborate story–of days when the town was vibrant and its railroad as an important link between the region and the state.

In Fairview, at the North Dakota border, a mural depicts the historic Noyly bridge, an engineering marvel that sits now out of town, forgotten excepts by locals.

Butte perhaps has the most effective set of public art to tell its story–where there was so little 30 years ago there are interpretive settings throughout the town of past glory days and key events, topped by a monumental mural in the heart of Uptown.

As a trend in public interpretation, I love the generation of new public art in Montana as much as admire the art of the New Deal era that adorns and emboldens our post offices. All of these creative expressions (the mural below is from Deer Lodge) remind anyone that the past is always present in the Big Sky Country.

Help with the new state historic preservation plan!

Posted on August 17, 2017 by carrollvanwest

My colleague Mark Baumler of the Montana Historical Society has asked for our help. Here is his message

Friends and colleagues,

Help us celebrate and identify historic places that matter across the state! Share your favorite photo with us of an historic place in Montana that is meaningful to you. Your photo may be featured on the Montana State Historic Preservation Office website and included in our update to the Montana Historic Preservation Plan 2018-2022. Learn how to submit a photo to us at mhs.mt.gov/Shpo/About/MTtimetraveler

It’s easy! Let’s show everyone what a special heritage we have to preserve here in Montana!

I love the Babcock Theatre in Billings (above) and the Elk Bar sign (below) from Chinook. What are your favs?

Gold Creek and Pioneer: bypassed landmarks

Posted on August 4, 2017 by carrollvanwest

When I began my fieldwork for the state historic preservation plan in 1984, there was one spot I was particularly eager to visit: Gold Creek and Pioneer on the west side of Powell County. Granville Stuart and Conrad Kohrs both loomed large in the history of Montana; they were associated, respectively, with the two mines. Stuart was been among the party who first struck gold there in 1858; Kohrs later owned the Pioneer mines. Plus the two mining areas were counted among the state’s earliest. Then one winter in 1982 traveling along Interstate Highway I-90 I had looked to the west and saw the faded wooden signs marking what they called the first gold strike in Montana–one of 1858 even before the Mullan Road had been blazed through the area. Not far away was

another nondescript sign–this one about the last spike of the Northern Pacific Railroad–it too was visible from the interstate. I had to know more.

Gold Creek store and post office, 1984.

What I found was not much, at least anything much that could become part of public interpretation. The folks at the general store and post office, where exterior signs proudly noted that it began in 1866, told me that the granite marker for the Gold Creek strike was on private property–well maintained but something no one was interested in doing more with. The last spike for the Northern Pacific Railroad was a similar story. Once that spot was all in the national news. Now it was a place on the railroad right-of-way and Burlington Northern wasn’t interested in visitors being on such a heavily traveled section.

The road west of Gold Creek led into the later placer mining of the Pioneer Mining District (established 1866)–with the high mounds of tailings coming from much later efforts to dredge every bit of precious metal from the property.

Ranchers had taken bits of older buildings from Pioneer and incorporated them into later structures between the mining district and Gold Creek. Pioneer as a ghost town barely existed then and little marks its past except for the scars of mining.

Gold Creek has existed since the dawn of Montana Territory but it has rarely caught a break–its monument about mining is landlocked on private property. The interpretive markers about the Northern Pacific’s last spike are on the interstate at the Gold Creek Rest Area. Much of what is there today dates to its last “boom” when the Milwaukee Road built through here c. 1908, but as regular readers of this blog know, the success of the Milwaukee and short lived and by 1980 it was bankrupt. Today little is left except the roadbed, as is the case, almost, in Gold Creek.

I say almost because the Milwaukee Road located one of its electric transmission buildings in the middle of Gold Creek, along the electrified line. Abandoned when I surveyed the town in 1984, the building has been restored and put back into business.

Milwaukee Road Electric Station facing the Northern Pacific line.

Two community institutions still shape Gold Creek. On the “far” end of town is the St. Mary’s Mission Catholic Church, built c. 1910, with its original Gothic design still intact.

But the most important community institution (yes, the Dinner Bell Restaurant out on the interstate exit is important but it is a new business) is the Gold Creek School, a rather remarkable building in that residents took two standard homestead era one-room schools and connected them by way of a low roof “hyphen” between the front doors.

Adaptation and survival–the story of many buildings at Gold Creek and Pioneer. Historical markers are scarce there but the history in the landscape can still be read and explored.

Adaptive Reuse and Montana’s Depots

Posted on July 28, 2017 by carrollvanwest

When I carried out the 1984-1985 survey of Montana as part of the state historic preservation planning process, one resource was at the forefront of my mind–railroad passenger stations. Not only had recent scholarship by John Hudson and John Stilgoe brought new interest to the topic, there had been the recent bankruptcy of the Milwaukee Road, and the end of passenger service in large parts of the state, except along the Hi-Line of the old Great Northern Railway (where Amtrak still runs today.)

The mid-20th century standardized design for Great Northern stations at Chester on US 2.

Some of the passenger stations in the major cities had already been converted into new uses, such as restaurants, offices, and various downtown commercial uses. The lovely turn of the twentieth century stations for the Great Northern (left) and the Milwaukee Road (right) in Great Falls showed how the location of the buildings, plus their

architectural quality and the amount of available space made them perfect candidates for adaptive reuse. While the tenants have changed over the past 30 plus years, both buildings still serve as heritage anchors for the city. While success marked early adaptive reuse projects in Great Falls and Missoula, for instance, it was slow to come to Montana’s largest city–the neoclassical styled Northern Pacific depot was abandoned and

deteriorating in the mid-1980s but a determined effort to save the building and use it as an anchor for the Montana Avenue historic district has proven to be a great success in the 21st century.

In the 1984-1985 I documented hundreds of railroad depots across Big Sky Country. From 2012-2015 I noted how many had disappeared–an opportunity to preserve heritage and put a well-located substantial building for the building back to work had been wasted. But I also came away with a deep appreciation of just how many types of new lives train stations could have.

Turning iconic buildings into community museums is a time-honored tradition, as you can find at the magnificent Northern Pacific station at Livingston, shown above. A handful of Montana communities have followed that tradition–I am especially glad that people in Harlowton and Wheatland County banded together to preserve the

Milwaukee Road depot there, since Harlowtown was such an important place in the railroad’s history as an electric line.

But there are so many other uses–as they know in Lewistown. Already in the mid-1980s investors in Lewistown had turned the old Milwaukee Road station, shown above, into a hotel and conference center, the Yogo Inn. When I visited Lewistown in 2013 the Yogo was undergoing a facelift after 30 years as a commercial business. The town’s other

historic depot, a substantial brick building (above) from the Great Northern Railway, was a gas station, convenience mart, office building, and store, all in one.

Deer Lodge is blessed with both of its historic depots. The Milwaukee Road depot has become a church while the Northern Pacific depot became the Powell County Senior Citizens Center. Indeed, converting such a community landmark into a community center is popular in other Montana towns, such as the National Register-listed passenger station shown below in Kevin, Toole County, near the border with Canada.

One of the most encouraging trends of this century is how many families have turned depots into their homes–you can’t beat the location and the long, horizontal nature of the often-found combination depot (passenger station and luggage warehouse in same building) means that these dwellings have much in common with the later Ranch-style houses of the 1950s and 1960s.

A former Great Northern depot in Windham.

A Milwaukee Road depot turned into a home in Rosebud County.

But in my work from 2012-15 I found more and more examples of how local entrepreneurs have turned these historic buildings into businesses–from a very simple, direct conversion from depot to warehouse in Grassrange to the use of the Milwaukee Road depot in Roundup as the local electric company office.

As these last examples attest–old buildings can still serve communities, economically and gracefully. Not all historic preservation means the creation of a museum–that is the best course in only a few cases. But well-built and maintained historic buildings can be almost anything else–the enduring lesson of adaptive reuse

To those who built a state, and made history

Posted on July 25, 2017 by carrollvanwest

Sad news came out of the state capitol last week when budget cuts gave the Montana Historical Society no choice but to announce that its uber talented staff just don’t have the funding to travel to the hundreds of important places across the state, to gather stories, preserve historic buildings, conserve invaluable documents and photographs, and to celebrate with communities both large and small the history, traditions, and people that made Montana the special place it is.

It’s unfortunate when a state steps back from its past and thinks its future is better without it. When I look for those who built the state, the deep past is where I start, and the leaps forward in how Montana’s tribes are documenting and interpreting their history to their terms and needs, one of the most important developments in Montana’s heritage development over the last 30 plus years.

Then there are the properties that link the peoples of Montana and their sense of themselves and their past–cemeteries large and small across the state, where veterans are commemorated and families celebrated.

Fort Kipp Cemetery, above, is one of those place, nestled on the river bluffs overlooking the Missouri River. On a larger scale but still intimate, personal, and compelling is the city cemetery of Red Lodge, hundreds of miles away. Here surrounded by the mountains

are graves from the early Finnish residents who came to work at the coal mines and build a community. Some are of a traditional design, immediately translated from the old country. Others–like the cast iron family marker shown above–are as mainstream as American industry could make it at the turn of the twentieth century: a prefabricated marker cast somewhere back east but with Finnish lettering, speaking to those who also came over in c.1900 to build a new land.

The Finnish imprint on the landscape of Carbon County has been eclipsed by generations of growth since the early 1900s, but as the 2016 Road Show of the Montana Preservation Alliance demonstrated, buildings large and small are still part of the landscape. With a few acres of land outside of Red Lodge, Finnish settlers and their descendants have maintained a place of community–the Kavela–which remains vibrant some 100 years later. At this place of ethnic identity and celebration, you almost feel like an intruder–that you have stepped inside a sacred circle as an outsider. But families go out of their way to make you feel welcome, through fellowship, good food, and stories of past and present. The Kavela naturally features one of the most traditional Finnish community buildings–the sauna, built of concrete in the 1920s. Speak of tradition, ethnic pride, and assimilation–a concrete sauna might say it all.

Indeed what you can find in the Finnish landscape of Carbon County is repeated countless times across Big Sky Country, just in different languages and with different forms. It is why you get off the interstates and travel the backroads, the dirt roads, for

the markers of the nations that built our nation can be almost anywhere. It might be of the many ethnicities who mined the copper of Butte, or the African American railroad

workers and other average citizens who established permanent institutions such as the Bethel Union AME Church in Great Falls, pictured below.

Stonemasons from Croatia are credited with many of the architecturally striking stone buildings in Lewistown, shown below, whereas if you stop and explore the state capital

of Helena, you can see where Irish Americans banded together to fund some of the state’s most iconic structures, from the majestic Catholic Cathedral that overlooks the city and the commanding statue of General Thomas Meagher in front of the State Capitol.

2011 MT Lewis and Clark County 137 catholic cathedral

2011 MT Lewis and Clark County 130 Thomas Meagher sculpture Civil War

From the Meagher statue it is only a few steps to the east to the doors of the Montana Historical Society. Its operating hours are fewer but you will find an institution not just of the past but of the future for like the land itself, the society, its collections, and dedicated staff are the keepers of the things and words that remain from those who built the state. The idea that Montana can stride into the 21st century without the Montana Historical Society is folly, defined.

Drive-In Time in Montana

Posted on June 2, 2017 by carrollvanwest

June means it is drive-in time in Big Sky Country. The next three months are not only when most visitors come to Montana. It is the time when Montanans get out and travel to festivals, rodeos, and their own family vacations. In my years of traveling and documenting historic places in Montana, I have not forgotten the drive-in restaurant and its role in the roadside landscape of the state. I paid some attention to this property type during the original work on the state historic preservation plan in 1984-1985. Most drive-ins (and here I am focusing on independent operators not fast food chains) dated between 1950 and 1970 and the best examples were located along stretches of early federal highways. When I returned in 2012-2016 to revisit the state’s historic landscape, scholarship told me to be on the look for drive-ins of all sorts and shapes. Some already had shuttered–like Zandy’s in Great Falls–but others were still vibrant, and great places for road food. The following are some of my favorites:

Bonanza Freeze, 1947, Montana St, Butte, roadside

Bonanza Freeze in Butte is a walk-up and drive–thru. Gotta love the plate glass wall.

Prairie Co Terry Dizzy Diner sign roadisde

Prairie Co Terry Dizzy Diner roadside US 10

The Dizzy Diner in Terry, on the historic Yellowstone Trail, is a drive-thru and has a few places inside–with traffic on old U.S. 10 being diverted to the interstate, it survives as a local town restaurant–true for several other places in Montana.

The Big K in Baker is along U.S. Highway 12–it too works as a walk-up–in southeast Montana.

The Main Drive-In in Conrad is located on the historic federal hi way (U.S. 91) and still draws in customers despite competition from chains and the diversion of most traffic to Interstate Highway I-15.

At Scobey, Shu Mei’s Kitchen converted an earlier drive-in into a family restaurant on Montana Highway 13 in northeast Montana.

This former drive-in at the forks of the Yellowstone Trail in Three Forks has been converted to a coffee shop.

Roosevelt Co Poplar The Peculator roadside

But my favorite coffee drive-in, by far, is the Percolator, in Poplar along U.S. Highway 2 in northeast Montana.

Dawson Co Glendive roadside Frosty In and Out

Frosty’s In and Out is another classic drive-in along the historic Yellowstone Trail, this time in Glendive.

It’s not surprising that Lewistown, in the middle of the state faraway from the interstate system, has several still operating roadside establishments from the mid-20th century, such as the Wagon Wheel Drive-In (above–and being a southerner I loved the sign that bragged “we have MT Dew”) and the Dash Inn (below), which opened in 1952.

The next three may well be my favorites of all of the different drive-ins. Ford’s Drive-In in Great Falls is so eye-catching with its Art Deco-influenced design and neon. Burgerville in Polson is just, well, eye-catching with all of its signs and towers–how could you ever miss it along U.S. Highway 93?

Near the downtown commercial district (on the old route of US 89).

in Livingston is another favorite of many, Mark’s In & Out and its wonderful shakes.

Then there is Matt’s Drive-In in Butte. This place was awarded the prestigious 2016 America’s Classic Award from the James Beard Foundation. The foundation’s press release stated: “The whitewashed cottage with sky-blue trim opened in 1930 as a drive-in. The staff still deliver some meals curbside to this day, and they remain cheerful curators of community, working the soda-fountain counter in a room lined with midcentury-style wood paneling. The food does the roadside genre proud.” Yes, indeed. And you haven’t been to Montana if you have not tried a nut burger from Matt’s. Always add a shake and onion rings here too.

Veterans Memorials Across Montana

Posted on May 29, 2017 by carrollvanwest

On this Memorial Day 2017 it is appropriate to celebrate the many memorials created by Montanans to recognize and commemorate the citizen soldiers who have served the armed forces of the United States. I am not adding much commentary because the memorials, both large and small, speak powerfully for themselves, and reflect the best of our values as a nation.

One of my favorite new veterans memorials is in Jordan, one of Montana’s smallest county seats, where memorial statuary and plaques with names of those who served stand proudly in the heart of the town.

Another compelling new memorial, at least it was installed after my historic preservation plan survey of 1984-1985, are these granite slabs, framed by the mountains, at Arlee.

Dillon had significantly expanded its earlier veterans memorial (on the left) along the federal highway into an impressive new city park, the Southwest Montana Veterans Memorial.

Even with the many changes in Ennis, the town has maintained its Veterans Memorial Park as a beautiful public park.

Another change was in Kalispell where the town had significantly expanded an earlier veterans memorial into one of the state’s most impressive monuments, located at the historic start of town on the grounds of the railroad depot.

Another city park with a veterans memorial theme is in Lewistown, where the nuclear missile tells you the role that central Montana still plays in our national defense.

Hamilton’s veterans memorial along U.S. Highway 93 will be a landmark for generations.

There are many more that could be included in this overview but for today I will end with another “new” memorial, at Harlem along U.S. Highway 2. This somber memorial is to a nearby plane crash in 1992 that claimed the lives of thirteen airmen: an event that shook this tiny town, and now will be forever remembered.

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Montana's Historic Landscapes

35 Years in the Big Sky Country

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