With material and manpower redirected to winning the fight against fascism, commercial and domestic construction practically ceased during World War II. After the war, pent up demand led to a mini construction boom. With very few lots left on the 100 and 200 blocks of Main, downtown expanded west. Ravalli County Deputy Clerk and Recorder Anna Read owned this property in 1947. That year contractor Lyle Rasmussen constructed a one-story building here for use as a restaurant. It later housed an auto parts store and then the Sears Department Store. The modest, brick structure represents the shift away from ornamentation. The architectural movement toward simplicity, which began in the 1930s, solidified after World War II. The building’s design echoes earlier Hamilton business blocks with its large display windows, designed to attract pedestrians. In addition, like the business blocks that preceded it, the building abuts the sidewalk rather than providing room for landscaping or a parking lot, as later businesses would do. Unlike those earlier buildings, however, striated multicolored brick provides almost its only decoration.

Erected by

Montana Historical Society.

Hamilton’s Ministerial Association opened the first free library in Ravalli County in April 1903 in a room donated by the Ravalli County Bank. Three months later, Hamilton voters levied a one mill tax to support the library, and the enterprise passed into public hands. In 1907, the library moved to the newly constructed city hall. When that space became inadequate, the community approached steel magnate Andrew Carnegie for money for a new building. The process stalled because Carnegie, who helped finance over 1,600 library buildings across the country, required towns to provide a building site. The Hamilton Woman’s Club revived the campaign in 1914 by procuring the necessary gift of land from Margaret Daly, widow of copper king Marcus Daly. On July 8, 1916, the new building opened to the public. The $9,000 structure’s symmetrical façade, daylight basement, and classical detailing are characteristic of Carnegie libraries. The front portico was added later. Community support led to construction of an addition in 1988, which has allowed the Bitterroot Public Library to meet the growing needs of its patrons

Erected by

Montana Historical Society.

Town halls originated in twelfth-century Italy, where bells were rung to call public assemblies. Missoula architect A. J. Gibson’s city hall design references this history. Allusions to Italy include such Italian Renaissance features as a low-pitched hipped roof, wide eaves, an arch above the front door, and a symmetrical façade. The prominent bell tower, common to American town halls, symbolizes the significance of democratic assembly. The building was designed in 1906 to house city offices, the fire department, and the public library. Originally, two sets of large bay doors, used for horse-drawn fire wagons, flanked the front entrance. Small communities frequently combined city services under one roof, but multiple use was not always ideal. Hamilton library patrons, for example, sometimes complained about the smell of horses. The library moved to a new facility in 1914, and in 1940 Hamilton remodeled the city hall/fire station, adding a truck bay to the building’s south side. While city offices moved to South Second Street in 1990, the fire department continues to operate from its original home.

Erected by

Montana Historical Society.

Riverside served as the summer residence of Margaret Daly, widow of copper magnate Marcus Daly, from its completion in 1910 until her death here in 1941. Daly himself had begun buying Bitterroot Valley land in 1887, eventually owning 28,000 acres. After Daly’s death in 1900, Mrs. Daly had Riverside constructed and managed local family properties and the family syndicate that oversaw Daly interests. This home is a unique Montana example of early-twentieth-century revival styles that successful capitalists used to display their wealth. Because the Panic of 1893 destroyed many mining-based fortunes here, and out-of-state investors financed later mining ventures, grand homes were a thing of Montana’s past by the time Mrs. Daly constructed Riverside. Missoula architect A. J. Gibson designed this house in the Georgian Revival style. Although comparatively restrained for mansions of this period, the house’s outstanding features include its monumental, classical portico, symmetrical façade, hipped roof, and balustrated roof deck. Today, the appearance of the interior decoration and professionally landscaped grounds is virtually unchanged from that of 1910.

Erected by Montana Historical Society.

“No year has favored the business section like 1910. And best of all, the buildings are of a better class than last year,” enthused the Ravalli Republic. Part of this boom, the First National Bank building replaced two wooden structures that housed a general store and Hamilton’s first hospital in the mid-1890s. The second floor of the new masonry building was divided into inexpensive apartments. The building’s first-floor façade reflected its dual purpose as a bank and store. Large display windows with an aluminum mullion frame marked Hub Clothing, which occupied the business block’s south half. Double-hung windows accented by brick voussiors (wedge-shaped bricks or stones) adorned the more formal façade of the First National Bank. F. H. Drinkenberg, president of First National Bank, also owned an interest in Hub Clothing. Mayor of Hamilton in 1910, his real estate investments reflected his faith in the town’s future. In addition to this building, Drinkenberg owned interests in two other Second Street business blocks also constructed 1909-1910.

Erected by Montana Historical Society

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Hamilton was born of the Anaconda Company’s voracious appetite for lumber, nurtured on the Bitterroot apple boom, and sustained by medical research. Copper King Marcus Daly—whose Big Mill cut millions of board feet annually to feed his mines and smelter—created this timber town after coming to the area to raise race horses. Working as Daly’s front man, engineer James Hamilton quietly bought 160 acres from area farmers. He platted the townsite in 1890, with Main Street running between the Big Mill on the west and the railroad on the east. By 1893, over forty businesses had opened downtown, catering to the mill workers whose heavy boots resounded on the wooden boardwalks that lined Main Street. Fearful of fire, downtown merchants steadily replaced many of Hamilton’s earliest false-front wooden buildings with buildings constructed from locally manufactured brick or blue-gray stone quarried in nearby Corvallis. New money arrived in Hamilton after 1907 with the Bitterroot apple boom. Hamilton’s population burgeoned to three thousand, and its downtown gained several stylish architect-designed buildings, identifiable by their high-fire brick, metal mullion storefronts, and leaded glass transoms. In the 1920s and 1930s the Rocky Mountain Laboratory, founded to combat spotted fever, sustained Hamilton’s economy, and up-to-date business owners introduced a sleeker architectural style to downtown. Designed by Missoula architect H. E. Kirkemo, the Bower Building at South Second and West Main typifies the smooth lines fashionable in the 1930s, while the wood-frame false-front building at 411 West Main reflects the community’s earliest history.

Erected by Montana Historical Society.

State officials turned out on January 21, 1937, for the grand opening of Hamilton’s new telephone system. The event marked the modernization of telecommunications in the Bitterroot Valley. Ivan C. Gustafson owned this property and built the building, according to the telephone company’s specifications, for its exclusive use. The old quarters in the Teidt Building on Second Street had been home to Hamilton’s telephone office for a quarter of a century. That facility had a huge six-operator switchboard, but only two operators were needed at any given time. This streamlined facility offered a much more compact, two-person switchboard. A public phone booth, unlocked at all times, opened on Main Street to simplify night calls. In addition to its own hot water plant and stoker, the building’s amenities included an operators’ restroom off the main office, “fitted with modern lockers and a davenport,” and a two-car garage at the rear. The building of red brick features a prominent Romanesque arched entry and buff-colored brick trim. The small apartment was added in 1952, and the telephone exchange operated here until 1964

Erected by

Montana Historical Society.

When construction began on Hamilton’s post office in August 1940, the worst of the Depression was over. Nevertheless, the building is a legacy of the New Deal, when the number of federal construction projects soared to put people to work. Montana congressman Jerry O’Connell secured the $100,000 appropriation for the combined post office and federal building as part of a bill that authorized $130 million for “emergency construction” across the United States. Constructed from a standardized plan provided by the Public Works Administration, the building has a symmetrical and dignified design. The post office expanded in 1997. To preserve this historic structure, officials placed the addition, and the new main entrance, on North Fourth Street. The original building, including the mural, Flathead War Party, remains open for viewing. Commissioned as part of a national project to employ artists and bring art to the people, the mural by Montana-born artist Henry Meloy depicts Flathead Indians preparing to attack their traditional enemies, the Blackfeet. It is one of only six Depression-era post office murals in Montana.

Erected by

Montana Historical Society.