Montana Building - Lewistown, MT
Posted by: T0SHEA
N 47° 03.935 W 109° 25.555
12T E 619522 N 5213653
Essentially the cornerstone building of the Lewistown Central Business Historic District, though it came later than the majority of the buildings in the district, the Montana Building is the largest, at six stories, and the most elegant.
Waymark Code: WMXTQM
Location: Montana, United States
Date Posted: 02/26/2018
Views: 1
The "Then" photo here was taken shortly after the completion of the Montana Building. Both were taken from across the Main Street intersection, looking north.
Built by a consortium of Lewistown's best and brightest businessmen, the Montana Building was initially home to Montana's oldest state bank, the State Bank of Fergus County, and the largest hardware company in the town, the Montana Hardware Company. As well, the building was large enough to house the offices of dozens of businesses and services, including lawyers, doctors and dentists, realtors, miners - almost every endeavor was housed in the building at one time or another.
With the drought induced exodus of settlers in the early 1920s, all the banks and many of the businesses of Lewistown failed, including the Bank of Fergus County and the First National Bank. In 1924 a second First National Bank was established, taking up offices on the ground floor of the Montana Building alongside the Montana Hardware Company. When the latter moved out in 1960 the bank took over the entire ground floor. It remains there to this day, under the name of the First Bank of Montana.
The beautiful Renaissance Revival building was a design of renowned architects Link & Haire, very representative of their interpretation of Renaissance Revival design. From top to bottom it sports a great deal of white terra cotta. Across the front are eight fluted pilasters with their Corinthian-like capitals at the fifth floor, with a corbelled cornice above, topped by a line of molded terra cotta. One story, at the cornice proper, is, first, a line of dentils, then molded modillions and another line of mounded terra cotta topping the overhanging cornice. The entire face is covered with terra cotta, giving the appearance of white marble, with many panels having mouldings inset. Much of the terra cotta decoration takes the form of foliage and flowers, with egg and dart mouldings covering some of the horizontal lines of terra cotta. Over the main entrance is a hanging canopy, supported by double sets of cables and having the buildings sole Romanesque window above it.
Year photo was taken: ca 1916
|
Visit Instructions:
To log a visit to each spot you are required to take your own photo. Alternatively you can tell a story about your own experience at the location or any unique information about that location to count as a visit.
Recent Visits/Logs:
There are no logs for this waymark yet. |
|
|
|