Kalispell is the seat of Flathead County, established on the Great Northern Railroad line in the 1890s. Today the city is the hub for commerce, transportation and medical care in northwest Montana. The Advisory Council on Historic Preservation designated it as a Preserve America community in recognition of its historic downtown and multiple National Register of Historic Places properties.
Certainly the town has many impressive late Victorian era buildings, like the County Courthouse, but this post focuses on a part of Kalispell’s historic built environment that doesn’t get enough attention—its buildings of modern 20th century styles.
The key town founder was C. E. Conrad and similar to how he started the town, you could also say he started the modernist traditions by commissioning his grand Shingle-style mansion from architect A.J.Gibson in 1895. Architectural historians consider the Shingle style, introduced by major American architects Henry Hobson Richardson and the New York Firm McKim, Mead, and White, to be an important precursor to the modernist buildings that would flourish in Kalispell during the 1930s.
Another important example of early modernist style is this local adaptation of Prairie house style, a form introduced and popularized by the designs of American master Frank Lloyd Wright.
Kalispell’s best modernist examples come from the 1930s to 1960s. In 1931 Brinkman designed the KCFW-TV building in a striking Art Deco style. It was originally a gas station but has been restored as an office building with its landmark tower intact.
The Strand Theatre closed as a movie house in 2007 but its colorful Art Deco marquee and facade remain, another landmark across the street from the History Museum which is housed in the old high school.
The Eagles Lodge (1948-1949) is an impressive example of late Art Deco style, especially influenced by the federal “WPA Moderne” buildings from the New Deal. G.D. Weed was the architect.
Then the town opened Elrod School in 1951. It is a good example of mid-century International style in a public building.
The 1950s decade witnessed new modern style religious buildings. The Central Bible Church (1953) evolved from a merger of Central Bible and the West Side Norwegian Methodist Church. Harry Schmautz was the architect.
That same year, the Lutheran church added a new wing for its youth ministry, the Hjortland Memorial, which is one of Kalispell’s most impressive 1950s design. Ray Thone was the architect.
In 1958 Central Christian Church completely remodeled its earlier 1908 building to a striking modern design.
That same year came the opening of St. Matthew Catholic School, an impressive two-story example of International style in an institutional building. the architect was the firm of Brinkman and Lenon.
Kalispell also has two excellent examples of commercial buildings in the mid-century contemporary style. Below is the stone veneer and window wall of the McGarvey and Townsend building.
But my favorite, until a recent “remuddling,” is the Sutherland Dry Cleaners, now a golf supply shop.
Kalispell has several good examples of mid-century domestic design. My favorite is this Ranch-style residence near the Conrad Mandion.
This post doesn’t include all of Kalispell’s modernist designs but hopefully I have included enough to demonstrate that the town has a significant modernist architecture tradition.
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.
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.
Hamilton’s veterans memorial along U.S. Highway 93 will be a landmark for generations.
The images above and those below come from those well maintained neighborhoods, where the sense of place and pride is so strongly stated.
Kalispell’s Main Street–the stem of the T-plan that dates to the town’s very beginning as a stop on the Great Northern Railway–has a different mix of businesses today than 30 years ago when I visited during my state historic preservation plan survey. It also now is a historic district within National Register of Historic Places, noted for its mix of one-story and two-story Western Commercial style businesses along with large historic hotels and an opera house for entertainment.
The Opera House, and I’m sorry you have to love the horse and buggy sign added to the front some years ago, dates to 1896 as the dream of merchant John MacIntosh to give the fledging community everything it needed. On the first floor was his store, which over the years sold all sorts of items, from thimbles to Studebakers. The second floor was a community space, for meetings, a gymnasium, and even from a brief period from 1905 to 1906 a skating rink. In this way, MacIntosh followed the ten-year-old model of a much larger building in a much larger city, the famous Auditorium Building in Chicago, providing Kalispell with a major indoor recreation space and landmark. Allegedly over 1000 people attended a performance of Uncle Tom’s Cabin soon after the opening.
The Alpine Lighting Center dates to 1929 when local architect Fred Brinkman designed the store for Montgomery Ward, the famous Chicago-based catalog merchant. Its eye-catching facade distinguished it from many of the other more unadorned two-part commercial blocks on Main Street.
The town’s early religious institutions also built to stay, leaving key landmarks throughout the neighborhoods that serve as historic anchors today. On Main Street alone there is the unique Arts and Crafts styled First Presbyterian Church (1925-26) by architect Fred Brinkman, and the Gothic Revival masonry and tower of Bethlehem Lutheran Church (1932-1937).
The city’s first Catholic school dated to 1917. The historic St. Matthew’s Catholic Church (1910) by Great Falls architect George Shanley remains the city’s most commanding Gothic landmark.
Montana's Historic Landscapes 