Good news in Billings

Posted on April 12, 2026 by carrollvanwest

The Foundation for Montana History does many good things across the Treasure State. The Foundation announced its new round of grant awards and I was extremely happy to learn of the grant for a preservation study for the Westetn Heritage Center.

The WHC has been an outstanding regional museum for decades and my professional relationship with the museum is almost 45 years in duration.

The building was constructed at the turn of the century in honor of Parmly Billings, a pivotal figure in the city’s early development. He was the son of Frederick Billings, the city’s founder and namesake. Parmly’s brother, Frederick, Jr., donated funds for the building to be the Parmly Billings Memorial Library. Montana architect Charles S. Haire designed the library in a Richardsonian Romanesque style. Supervising the project were several leaders of Billings including Albert Babcock and I.D. O’Donnell, who had been a good friend of Parmly.

In the early 1990s visionary WHC director Lynda Bourque Moss reconnected the museum with the Billings heirs and they helped to fund a renovation that restored the original entrance and name and also reorganized the landscape so that a statue of Frederick Billings, which had stood alone in front of a city parking garage, could stand in front of the building.

The Billings statue at the city parking garage 1988

I was involved with the museum both for the research of my book Capitalism on the Frontier: The Transformation of Billings and the Yellowstone Valley (1993) and an award winning exhibit on the valley’s history that was created in 1990s.

Since then I have of course visited the museum on numerous occasions. In the new century, the museum accepted the donation of the J.K. Ralston studio to the east corner of the property.

Ralston cabin at Rocky Mountain College 1991

it has been over 30 years since the mid-1990s renovations and so it’s time for a new preservation assessment of this very significant building. Congrats to the Foundation for Montana History for making it happen!

Tower Rock State Park

Posted on December 29, 2025 by carrollvanwest

Since my initial survey of Montana historic places in 1984-1985, Montana state parks has established several small but significant historic parks. One of these, Tower Rock State Park, is viewed by hundreds of drivers daily, as it is located directly on Interstate I-15 along the Missouri River Canyon in southern Cascade County.

Native Americans traveling from their Rocky Mountain homelands into the game-rich high plains, used the rock formation, over 400 feet high, as a landmark between the two regions. The Bitterroot Salish, Lower Kootenay, and the Piegan Blackfeet are all associated with the place. For the Piegan Blackfeet it was and is a sacred place. Groups camped in the vicinity between the Rock and Missouri River.

When on July 16, 1805 Capt. Meriwether Lewis of the famous Corps of Discovery encountered the Rock on his journey west, he noted the presence of what he called an “Indian road” around the Rock. He then decided to name the place and wrote in his journal: “this rock I called the tower. it may be ascended with some difficulty nearly to its summit, and from it there is a most pleasing view of the country we are now about to leave. from it I saw this evening immence herds of buffaloe in the plains below.^”

The surrounding region’s development took place in the late 19th century, accelerated by the decision of the Manitoba Road to built through the canyon a rail link connecting Great Falls, Helena and Butte. This line became known as the Montana Central Railroad.

In the early 20th century came an automobile route, U.S. Highway 91, and then the interstate highway in 1968. Interestingly, the property’s official designation as a historic site came much later. Tower Rock was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 2002. Two years later, it became a state park of about 140 acres.

The park is day-use only but there is adequate public interpretation. There is also a maintained trail to the Rock’s base, allowing for a more direct experience with landscape and some mitigation of the noise from the highway. The importance of the place deserves a more robust treatment but perhaps more can come in the future ( and the adjacent disposal center can be moved to a more appropriate location).

Changes at Sleeping Buffalo Hot Springs

Posted on November 9, 2025 by carrollvanwest

In 2013 I last visited Sleeping Rock Hot Springs, just north of U.S. Highway 2 in Phillips County. The following year I posted about the obvious changes then underway to put this once vibrant mid-20th century recreational area back to greater prominence.

I returned in late September 2025 to find that, indeed, lots of improvements were made in the last ten years. A large bar/restaurant had been built, the grounds expanded and modernized, and the pool greatly enlarged.

But the hot springs’ New Deal roots were still apparent because attached to the pool facility was the pergola of the early 1930s.

This hipped roof stone structure came about due to the joint efforts of local residents and government officials. An exhibit at the Phillips County Museum in Malta (more on that place later) points out that a rancher Elbert Davison first saw the mineral springs as having medicinal qualities. He built a small pool that brought relief to his son who had polio. That effort convinced the Saco American Legion to do more and soon a local effort to gain control of the spot for public use met its success in 1931. Later that year the American Legion Hot Springs was in operation, quite a feat in Depression-era northeast Montana.

That effort caught the attention of county agent H.L. Lantz to work with the New Deal’s Resettlement Administration, then active in the Milk River Project area, to get the Public Works Administration to fund the pergola. That story is told in the marker (above) still at the pergola today.

Bruno Partzsch was the stone mason for the buildings, and some of his work is still visible in the expanded and modernized pool building of today (2025). I wonder if Partzsch is also the crafter behind the stone building at Zurich Park in Blaine County since both places have ties with the Milk River Project.

Sleeping Buffalo Hot Springs is on the market in the fall of 2025. Business is tough—actually way beyond tough—in this part of Montana’s Hi-Line. I only hope that new owners who can keep the momentum going can be found and this jewel of a historic place—shaped by a partnership between locals and government—will survive well beyond its 100th anniversary in 2031.

The evolution of Billings’ Montana Avenue

Posted on August 16, 2025 by carrollvanwest

I was last in Billings in early July and, as usual, I immediately walked around Montana Avenue to see what was going on—doing that walk has been a tradition for me for over 40 years.

Do you remember what Montana Avenue was like in 1985–well here’s two views if you don’t recall, or were even around in 1985. It was a mix of second hand, rummage, stores, “antique” stores, flophouses, and an emerging galley scene, led by Toucan Gallery.

There was an oasis—the restored Rex Hotel, with one of the city’s best restaurants, and next door, the Rainbow Bar, an oasis of a far different type. Thankfully both businesses, with some changes, remain anchors to the district today.

On the opposite side of the street—despair. The imposing 1907 Northern Pacific Railroad depot was boarded up, forgotten and deteriorating. The reality was a puzzle to me because already in Great Falls and Missoula investors had restored and reopened historic Milwaukee Road depots. Why not Billings?

Five years later, 1990, it had gotten worse instead of better at the depot. When graffiti begins to mark a historic building the end is often near. On the other side of the street, however, new investment kept the historic buildings moving forward.

Changes were afoot at the McCormick Block where two adjacent one story 100 year old buildings had been torn away to create a parking lot.

And the district had a new east end, with the conversion of a 20th century building into the Coulson Bar. I loved the reference to the river town that was a precursor to Billings.

The 1990s was when the historic preservation movement transformed Montana Avenue. The Montana Avenue Historic District was listed in the National Register of Historic Places, thanks to the vision of property owners supported by the city and the State Historic Preservation Office and the work of Chere Jiusto.

When I next visited in 1998, I found the depot, finally, restored and serving as a new anchor.

The new courtyard at the Rex was quite the place to be and be seen. I even saw Hollywood stars there in 1998. the 21st resurgence of Montana Avenue was ready to begin.

How many of you used the Internet cafe at the McCormick Block? I did in 2000 when I took the image above.

Fast forward to July 2025. The once neglected district is a city downtown hub, hosting a street event and businesses booming. What a change from 1985.

Changes in Big Timber

Posted on July 20, 2025 by carrollvanwest

Readers of this blog know that Big Timber is one of my favorite Yellowstone Valley towns. It still has that classic Northern Pacific Railroad town plan with a long commercial artery extending south from the railroad tracks that then turns into a quite captivating residential neighborhood.

The restoration of the Grand Hotel in the 1990s really helped the commercial area turn a corner.

I have spent nights at the hotel and had a couple of meals there, always thought it would be a mainstay for years. The pandemic alas hurt a lot of small town businesses everywhere and Big Timber’s Grand Hotel struggled. When I was there in July 2025 it was closed but promised a reopening.

But there had been another quite jarring— the read brick was gone and everything was painted black, like the place was in mourning.

Then I noticed a second shock, the classic Rustic style Timber Bar (one of my favs for 40 years) also was covered in black.

I always tell folks—don’t sweat the paint colors on a historic building. It can always change. But black in Big Timber, it just didn’t seem right.

But please don’t paint over Edna and Mel’s Gooseys place. What a jewel!

And leave the town plain in place. Here is a western town always worth a stop. Change is ok but please respect the classic.

Montana in Black and White

Posted on August 24, 2024 by carrollvanwest

In doing the photography for the 1984-85 survey for the State Historic Preservation Office, everything was in Black and White, both for the stability of black and white negatives but also for the cost—color slides were expensive. Thirty plus years later, it’s totally different. Everything is digital and only a few places will even process black and white film.

But I have continued to take a few rolls of black and white film on my recent work in Montana. Here are a few images to share.

The older US 2 route into Cut Bank features this wonderful piece of roadside sculpture. And back in 1984 the Glacier Gateway Inn was the place to stay.

Frank Little Grave in Butte. The starkness and shadows of black and white film is perfect for cemetery work, as this famous grave at Mountain View Cemetery shows.

The same is true for Anaconda’s historic cemetery. As I have said in earlier posts, this place is one of the state’s most compelling places. I can explore there all day long.

Love the decorative iron work on the gate and entrance to the Knights section at Anaconda

Ghost towns from either the mining or homestead eras always leave buildings that just seem to say more in black and white. Here we are at Barber on US Highway 12 in central Montana.

Abandoned schools that become lonely landmarks of hopes crushed: Buffalo, Montana

Glasgow, Montana: It might be in the middle but it’s not nowhere

Posted on August 11, 2024 by carrollvanwest

In 2024 I began to see media accounts, both regionally and nationally, of how Glasgow, the seat of Valley County, was the most isolated place you can imagine, truly in the Middle of nowhere.

Historic Great Northern Railroad corridor in Glasgow

I’m not one to argue with geographers and economists. I’m sure from their perspective, they got it right. But I never thought of Glasgow as isolated: it is on the Great Northern mainline, and part of the famed Empire Builder Amtrak route, and on U.S. Highway 2.

Then the town has always shown a great deal of pride and ambition, conveyed so effectively by its many historic buildings, starting with the First National Bank, built c. 1884 and listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

When you enter the town from the underpass of the railroad, the bank is the first landmark to catch your eye, appropriate too for the impact of local banks on a town’s economic prospects during the homesteading boom and bust of the 1910s and 1920s, respectively.

Another landmark from the homesteading era is the Rundle Building, once the Glasgow Hotel and restored in the last ten years as an upscale hotel in the heart of downtown. Built c. 1916 and designed by the important Billings firm of Link and Haire, the Rundle is a captivating statement of an Arts and Crafts-infused Mediterranean Revival style. I have been trying to get back to Glasgow to stay here for the last four years—maybe I will make it in 2025.

The 1930s transformed Valley County through the construction of the mammoth Fort Peck Dam on the Missouri River. Glasgow too has a major New Deal landmark in its U.S. post office and courthouse, built c. 1939 and designed by federal architect Louis A. Simon.

Its understated New Deal Deco exterior obscures a jewel of an interior, highlighted by its New Deal-funded 1942 mural depicting local history and the changes brought about by the Fort Peck Dam by artist Forest Hill. This building too is listed in the National Register.

Another important New Deal supported building was all about the community, and providing new opportunities: the Glasgow Civic Center. It too has a New Deal Deco style, and its large public space has been used for almost every type of event or gathering you can imagine.

Glasgow’s sense of itself today still respects it past, brilliantly conveyed by its large and expansive museum. When I first visited Glasgow 40 years

ago, I held a public meeting on the state historic preservation plan here, and the next morning residents gave me a detailed tour of the recently established museum. I was impressed with its collection then, now it sprawls through the building to the adjoining grounds.

Lewis and Clark mural, 2095, by Jessie Henderson, a Chippewa/Cree artist

Indeed, the saloon exhibit underscores another fun part of Glasgow—across from the depot in the original route of Highway 2 is an amazing collection of bars, stores, and eateries, right out of the early 1900s.

But back to the museum, and its important Montana decorative arts collection of the work of modern craftsman Thomas Molesworth, once in the town’s Carnegie library.

The newer exterior exhibits led the museum to move entire building to the property, including examples of the homestead shacks of the early 1900s that were followed by permanent homes such as this white painted bungalow.

Representative ranch house from homesteading boom

Pride of place, pride of the past. Glasgow might be in the middle but it is far from being nowhere as this small sampling of properties demonstrates.

A fall drive along U.S. 12

Posted on October 8, 2023 by carrollvanwest

When I lived in Helena from 1981 to 1985 one of my favorite jaunts was along U.S. Highway 12 from Townsend to Roundup. It remains so today, 40 years later. My initial interest centered on railroad corridors. Helena to Townsend followed the Northern Pacific Railroad and a good bit of the Missouri River (now Canyon Ferry Lake).

Northern Pacific bridge over Missouri River near Townsend

Missouri River and Canyon Ferry valley near Townsend

It was a brilliant day with fall colors just popping as we left US 287 and turned into the heart of Townsend.

As soon as you leave town to the east you encounter a lovely mix of ranches and irrigated fields until you thread your way through a national forest along Deep Creek.

We decided to continue east by briefly jumping off US 12 and go to Montana 284 so we could follow the Milwaukee Road corridor from Lennep to Martinsdale where we would reconnect with US 12. Two of my travelers had never been to the Milwaukee Road “ghost town” of Lennep. It was a beautiful morning to be there.

You first realize that this abandoned railroad corridor is different when you encounter an electric powerhouse—the Milwaukee Road’s tracks were electrified from Harlowton Montana west to Idaho.

At Lennep the landmarks remain—the Trinity Lutheran Church, the store, the school, a teacher’s cottage and an early notched log house—but all were a little worse for the wear compared to my last visit 10 years earlier.

As we traveled east that morning we quickly moved through the county seats of Harlowton and Ryegate to get to Roundup by lunch. The Musselshell Valley was brilliant even as signs of the old railroad almost disappeared.

Roundup continues its renaissance with new businesses and restored buildings. The town core, clustered around the intersection of US highways 12 and 87, was busy on a fall weekend.

A mural on the great cattle drive of 1989

As I observed a few years ago Roundup residents worked together and created a plan—and the place continues to work the plan, from the adaptive reuse of its historic stone school to the careful stewardship of its historic fairgrounds. It’s impressive.

After Roundup we stopped at two county seats on the return to Helena. Harlowton was rocked by the closing of the Milwaukee Road over 40 years ago. It has struggled to reach the economic comeback achieved at Roundup. But the historic stone buildings have great potential. Three of them are now part of a large museum complex.

Then there’s the newcomer: the Gally’s microbrewery and pub, housed in the 1913 Montana Block.

It’s a great place for local beer and good conversation—and maybe the start of something good for the town.

US Highway 12 was torn up for major repairs when I last visited White Sulphur Springs last decade. The improvement along its population growth and the ever expanding hot springs gives the place a new look, reflected in new catchy fronts to local bars along with new businesses such as a huge Town Pump.

But historic White Sulphur Springs is doing ok too: the New Deal constructed Meagher County Courthouse is still a roadside landmark while the old railroad corridor, just west of the Hot Springs, remains, awaiting its rebirth.

These places are mere highlights along a historic route that’s worth a drive anytime in the fall.

Milltown State Park, revisited

Posted on October 7, 2023 by carrollvanwest

When I last explored Bonner and Milltown in 2015, the effort to reclaim the river landscape created at the confluence of the Blackfoot and Clark’s Fork rivers—but long hidden by past industrial uses—was underway but far from finished. At the end of September 2023 I was able to return to the park and see the transformation myself. It is a quite remarkable super-fund project that restored a natural landmark but also told a significant historical story.

At the confluence section of the park, the removal of the dam is now 15 years old and while you can still visualize its location, to many it must look like a place that hasn’t changed in decades.

The interpretation kiosk relates the changes well but I like how the park is not inundated with markers. Paved trails take you everywhere, and give you an up close but safe way to view the steel bridge of the Northern Pacific Railroad’s mainline along with the nearby but now abandoned tunnel for the Milwaukee Road.

Talk about a transportation crossroads for the Mountain West—still a great site from the Milltown Bridge where you have bridges for Montana 200, the Interstate and the two railroad lines easily viewable from the pedestrian bridge.

Trails that link the pedestrian bridge to the river were not complete in 2014 but now they are finished and give you another opportunity to go to the Blackfoot river bank.

Milltown State Park is a remarkable historical landscape, whether you explore by hiking, biking or by boat.

Restoration at Fort Shaw: the Regimental Commanding Officers Quarters

Posted on August 17, 2023 by carrollvanwest

For almost 50 years the Sun River Valley Historical Society has undertaken the preservation and restoration of Fort Shaw (1867-1891), one of the most important federal sites in the west. When I first met and talked with the group in 1984 during the state historic preservation planning process, efforts were just underway, focused on the officers duplex, the wash house, and bakery.

Now I would like to focus on achievements of the last 10 years since the last visit in 2013. I have posted earlier about how the society has restored the cemetery. This post is about the regimental officers quarters, where restoration began with repairing the historic adobe walls in 2014 and continued with a comprehensive interior restoration over the next several years.

While the first restored building serves as a general history exhibit about the fort and immediate region, the society restored the Commanding Officers quarters as a period historic building.

Within the period objects found in each room, the society also empathizes a “First Lady” theme, adding a strong historic textiles collection to the museum.

The society took care with the kitchen and also addressed the presence of Chinese cooks at the property. The federal census of 1880 records 5 Chinese men at Fort Shaw. A letter from 1887 documents that Ah Wai was employed as a cook for the private company that operated the post’s mess hall and store. The Fort Shaw Indian School superintendent, who may have resided in this building, hired Joe Ling as a cook in 1898.

A bedstead for an unidentified Chinese cook at Fort Shaw is located within the pantry of the building

Bedrooms arranged in the second floor—note the massive chimney flue of adobe brick.

My initial impression is that the many period objects are both a blessing and a curse. A blessing is that the furnishings make the place “come alive” and creates ample opportunities for storytelling about the inhabitants. It reinforces the Victorian era that the fort was part of—and the storyline of military families in the west. The curse is that the rooms may have too many objects—and few that are directly tied to the property. Do overfurnished interiors overwhelm the visitors visually—it is too much to take in?

Such is the challenge of the period room historic house museum. If the past here is any indication, the preservation of Fort Shaw is far from over—I look forward to future visits.

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