The Nevitt Building was built to house Gallatin Book & Stationery, owned and operated by Mr. Nevitt. In 1897 the store was purchased by Sherman G. Phillips who changed the name to Phillips Book & Office Supply. This store remained in operation by a few different owners in the building until October of 2009. At that time it moved to the building next door at 115 East Main, at the same time downsizing.
With the move and downsizing of Phillips Book & Office Supply, the main floor is today home to a jewelry store, a toy company and a wine tasting bar, while upstairs are offices for various small enterprises.
A Bozeman Daily Chronicle news article from 1997, quoted below, relates some of the detail of the operation of the store through the years.
Store celebrates 100th anniversary
By GAIL SCHONTZLER | Apr 6, 1997
Ever since the Mr. Nevitt built the brick building at 111 E. Main St. in 1892, it has been a bookstore, starting 107 years ago with the Gallatin Book & Stationery.
In 1897, it was purchased by Sherman G. Phillips. A scrapbook contains a typed contract between Phillips and Augustus Ryon, first president of the state agricultural college, forming a partnership to sell the Blickensderfer typewriter. [1997 owner Harold] Arnold still has one of the tiny typewriters and its original box.
He also has Phillips’ original ledger, where he noted in precise penmanship the amounts paid to suppliers like Rand McNally, Houghton Mifflin and the Waterman pen company.
Phillips has outlived many other names on the ledger, including the company that made New Home sewing machines. “They were guaranteed forever I hope somebody doesn’t bring one in,” Arnold joked.
After Phillips died in 1938, ownership passed to his daughter, Madeline Purdy, and then her three children. In 1939, Farmer Anderson started buying into the business and he managed it for 43 years.
There have been many other changes over the years. Phillips once carried candy, cigars, fishing and ski gear. During World War II, when gas was rationed, it used a bike with a trailer to make deliveries.
Famous authors who came and signed books at Phillips left their autographs, which are in the scrapbook, A.B. Guthrie, Jr. in 1971 and Carl Sandburg in 1937.
Two great chases took place through the bookstore. Around the turn of the century, Nelson Story chased J.M. Lindley, with whom he was feuding, down Main Street with the intention of cane whipping him; Lindley escaped by running through Phillips’ store, according to Smith.
Arnold also recalls a night in the 1950s when a burglar broke in through the basement coal chute, was spotted by the police, ran upstairs and escaped by breaking out a transom. He was never caught, but the gun he dropped in the basement was confiscated.
From the Bozeman Daily Chronicle