National Register of Historic Places—Section #8 Northern Pacific Story Mill Historic District Narrative Statement of Significance: The Northern Pacific/Story Mill Historic District is historically significant for its association with Bozeman's steady economic and demographic evolution during its Village, Civic, Progressive and Nationalization phases of development. 1 In particular, the district's resources are representative of the fundamental role that the Northern Pacific and, later, the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul railroads played in this dynamic process of historical change. As the undisputed transportation hub of southwestern Montana's impressive agricultural economy, the Northern Pacific/Story Mill Historic District is reflective of broad historic patterns of commerce, travel, and settlement, and, therefore, qualifies for National Register listing according to criterion A. The district also meets criterion B for its associations with Bozeman area capitalist Nelson Story Sr. and, to a lesser extent, his decedents. Finally, the district qualifies for the Register under criterion C as a representation of standardized transportation technology, engineering, and architecture during the period of significance as well as for the design influence of Fred Willson, a regionally important architect. Overview Bozeman's steady growth from the time of its settlement in 1863 through World War II is largely attributable to three significant factors: the tremendous fertility of the Gallatin Valley, the economic influence of the Nelson Story family, and the presence of the Northern Pacific and the Milwaukee Railroads. The geographic nexus for these interrelated influences was the Northern Pacific/Story Mill Historic District--the earliest and most active commercial/industrial center in the region. Characterized by a high degree of architectural diversity, the district contains a meaningful concentration of railroad, commercial and industrial buildings, structures, and sites that typically date from 1882 to 1945. The vast majority of these properties contribute to and help convey the district's overall character in that the integrity of their location, setting, design, materials, workmanship, feeling and association have largely been preserved through a prolonged continuity of use. Of the 52 resources contained within the Northern Pacific/Story Mill Historic District, nine are of primary significance, thirty-four are of contributing significance and nine are non-contributing. Thirteen of these buildings, structures and sites date from Bozeman's 1873-1883 Village Phase of development and are highly suggestive of the beginnings of industrial urbanization in the community as stimulated by the arrival of the Northern Pacific Railroad. Another fifteen of the 1 James R. McDonald, Bozeman Historic Resource Survey (Missoula, Montana: Privately Printed, 1984), 11-118.
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National Register of Historic Places—Section #8
Northern Pacific Story Mill Historic District
Narrative Statement of Significance:
The Northern Pacific/Story Mill Historic District is historically significant for its association with
Bozeman's steady economic and demographic evolution during its Village, Civic, Progressive
and Nationalization phases of development.1 In particular, the district's resources are
representative of the fundamental role that the Northern Pacific and, later, the Chicago,
Milwaukee and St. Paul railroads played in this dynamic process of historical change. As the
undisputed transportation hub of southwestern Montana's impressive agricultural economy, the
Northern Pacific/Story Mill Historic District is reflective of broad historic patterns of commerce,
travel, and settlement, and, therefore, qualifies for National Register listing according to criterion
A. The district also meets criterion B for its associations with Bozeman area capitalist Nelson
Story Sr. and, to a lesser extent, his decedents. Finally, the district qualifies for the Register
under criterion C as a representation of standardized transportation technology, engineering, and
architecture during the period of significance as well as for the design influence of Fred Willson,
a regionally important architect.
Overview
Bozeman's steady growth from the time of its settlement in 1863 through World War II is largely
attributable to three significant factors: the tremendous fertility of the Gallatin Valley, the
economic influence of the Nelson Story family, and the presence of the Northern Pacific and the
Milwaukee Railroads. The geographic nexus for these interrelated influences was the Northern
Pacific/Story Mill Historic District--the earliest and most active commercial/industrial center in
the region.
Characterized by a high degree of architectural diversity, the district contains a meaningful
concentration of railroad, commercial and industrial buildings, structures, and sites that typically
date from 1882 to 1945. The vast majority of these properties contribute to and help convey the
district's overall character in that the integrity of their location, setting, design, materials,
workmanship, feeling and association have largely been preserved through a prolonged
continuity of use.
Of the 52 resources contained within the Northern Pacific/Story Mill Historic District, nine are of
primary significance, thirty-four are of contributing significance and nine are non-contributing.
Thirteen of these buildings, structures and sites date from Bozeman's 1873-1883 Village Phase of
development and are highly suggestive of the beginnings of industrial urbanization in the
community as stimulated by the arrival of the Northern Pacific Railroad. Another fifteen of the
Drive the two-lane highways of the Great Plains and an utterly unique and perfectly functional architectural form announces each whistle stop from miles off. Like the lighthouses that mark America’s coastlines, or the giant metal headframes that identify Butte’s industrial heritage closer to home, lofty country grain elevators define the agricultural landscape of the American West. Although most commonly associated with grasslands, one would be hard-pressed to find an architectural landmark that better embodies the history of the Gallatin Valley. Today, in the fertile, well-watered environment that promoters once called “the Egypt of America,” starkly beautiful grain elevators memorialize a bygone era and remind us of our rapidly disappearing rural heritage. There was a time when the story was very different. With the coming of the Industrial Revolution and the related explosive growth of America’s great cities during the mid-1800s, the demand for food crops increased significantly. With the expansion of railroads and the Homestead Act of 1862, agriculture spread onto the temperate grasslands of North America. As wheat became the premiere cash crop of the Great Plains, grain elevators emerged as architecturally distinctive and functionally critical symbols of a burgeoning industry. The influential Swiss architect, Le Corbusier, celebrated “these castles of the New World” as the first truly American architecture, one with no European antecedents—the perfect expression of form following function. Everything about these prairie skyscrapers was unique, it seemed—their shape, their purpose, even the fascinating manners in which many were built. On the southern plains, most grain elevators were of standard balloon frame construction. The elevators of the northern plains and Canada, however, were of cribbed construction, a technique in which 2x8 or 2x6 boards were stacked horizontally, with broad sides together to form thick walls that interlocked at the corners, log cabin style. Prior to 1941, fully 96% of the grain elevators erected in Montana were constructed in this unusual manner, according to one Department of Agriculture study.
Amazingly, the cribbing lumber in just one typical 30,000-bushel grain elevator is almost 400,000 board feet. This extraordinary amount of wood enabled these vertical warehouses to withstand the immense pressure of tons of grain, as well as extreme weather conditions outside. Most were also sided with metal or asbestos to minimize the ever-present danger of fire. One of the best-preserved examples of wood cribbed construction in the Bozeman area is the MISCO grain elevator at 700 North Wallace Avenue. Built in 1933 by the Missoula Mercantile Company, this local icon is one of the very few elevators constructed between the Twin Cites and Seattle during drought years of the Great Depression. Although construction techniques distinguished these sentinels of the northern plains from their southern counterparts, the internal functions of grain elevators were all essentially the same. A combination of mechanical lift devices and gravity flow was used to unload the grain, raise it to the top of the structure via a bucket elevator, distribute it to the assigned bins for storage, and eventually direct it through a spouting system to a waiting boxcars below. Most elevators also included a scale room, where each delivery was weighed, graded, and recorded, as well as a receiving pit, and a drive shed to shelter grain during the unloading process. Though their primary functions were to store and merchandise grain, it was not unusual to find an elevator that also sold fertilizer, feed, seed, coal, lumber and other commodities also. Railroads frequently sidestepped the regulations that prohibited them from operating storage facilities themselves, railroads offered incentives such as nominal lease rates, spur lines, and special rate arrangements to encourage independent companies to construct elevators throughout grain producing regions. In many instances, a grain elevator’s location gave impetus for the establishment of a new community. Such was the case in Belgrade, for example, where the local elevator quickly became a vital center of economic and social activity. “After the first grain elevator was built here, the town began to grow,” remembered attorney Walter Aitken in 1908, “and it has been growing ever since.” By the early 1900s, the sheer volume of grain grown in the Gallatin Valley necessitated “an ample and adequate elevator system.” Bozeman contained no less than six “modern and up-to-date elevators with a combined capacity of 600,000 bushels” in 1908. Belgrade boasted another “four modern plants with a combined capacity of 650,000 bushels,” while Manhattan claimed “two large elevators of the latest pattern,” with a combined capacity of 355,000 bushels.
Four local flour mills consumed the bulk of the wheat grown in the Gallatin Valley in the early 1900s. The Bozeman Milling Company alone controlled three grain elevators—two in Bozeman and one in Belgrade—with a combined capacity of 450,000 bushels. Montana’s flour milling operations were so extensive, that it was not until 1907 that surplus of hard milling wheat was available for shipment to markets outside of the state. Feeling “wholly at the mercy of the grain dealers in the county” who possessed a virtual monopoly on grain storage, area farmers formed the Gallatin County Farmer’s Alliance in 1904. By 1908, the Alliance owned two grain elevators—one at Bozeman with the capacity of 85,000 bushels, and the other at Belgrade with a capacity of 130,000 bushels. With control of their own elevators, Alliance members soon marketed their grain, “at a better price than was being paid by the local elevator men,” according to Alliance Secretary A. J. Holloway. The arrival of new railroads in the Gallatin Valley brought new spur lines and even more grain elevators. Of these, the most significant was the Milwaukee Road’s Turkey Red branch line—named for a kind of wheat—which curved north, along the Bridger foothills, from Bozeman to an elevator at Menard. Other locally operated spur lines, like the Camp Creek Railroad, connected the town of Manhattan with an elevator at Anceney. Although fires periodically claimed area elevators, Bozeman had twelve grain elevators in operation in 1912, nearly half of the total number in Gallatin County. When the First World War broke out in Europe, the demand for Montana wheat was unprecedented, and all energies were devoted to harvesting, storing, and transporting the crop. By 1920, Bozeman was home to seventeen elevators with a total storage capacity of 2,000,000 bushels. After 1920, the trend turned increasingly toward the ownership of grain elevators by large corporations. At its peak, the Montana Elevator Company controlled as many as fifty-seven grain elevators across the treasure state, according to Country Grain Elevator Historical Society President Bruce Selyem. Now, these vestiges of our agrarian past are rapidly disappearing. With the rise of corporate farming in America, giant concrete storage facilities are replacing older gain elevators with limited storage capacities at an alarming rate. The diminishing importance of railroads has likewise left dozens of abandoned elevators to be ravaged by weather, vandals, and wood recyclers.
Current trends do not bode well for those interested in preserving country grain elevators. A 1929 listing of licensed grain elevators in Montana indicates that 586 were in operation across the state. Today, according to the Montana Department of Agriculture, just 130 elevators remain in operation. The good news is this: many who love country grain elevators are finding creative ways to adaptively reuse historic grain elevators right here in the Gallatin Valley. Property owners are now in the process of converting the Anceney elevator into a residence and the historic MISCO elevator, at 700 North Wallace Avenue, is currently utilized as a furniture manufacturing warehouse and showroom. Elsewhere, historic grain elevators have been converted into museums, climbing gyms, bars, restaurants and office spaces. Those with an appreciation of the aesthetics of historic grain elevators should attend the ongoing show a the Beall Park Art Center entitled “Form Not Function: The Art of Historic Grain Elevators.” Containing works of more than sixty artists from throughout the American West and Canada, the exhibit will be showing at 409 North Bozeman Avenue until July 22nd. Others, concerned about grain elevator history and preservation should consider joining the Country Grain Elevator Historical Society. Information regarding the Society can be obtained at www.country-grain-elevator-historical-society.org.
“Can’t You Hear the Whistle Blowin’?”: The Arrival of the Railroad in Bozeman By B. Derek Strahn, Historic Preservation Consultant On a memorable March afternoon in 1883, five men crowded into the cupola of the original Gallatin County Courthouse to witness history—the arrival of the Northern Pacific Railroad. Years later, County officials located a message carefully printed on a beam in the 1880 landmark recording the momentous occasion. It read: “First engine hove in sight March 14, 1883 at 4:30 p.m. Attest George Ash, W. F. Sloan, Nelson Story, A. A. Deem, M. M. Black.” Hopes of the Northern Pacific Railroad’s arrival had existed since Bozeman’s 1864 establishment. That summer, President Lincoln signed legislation establishing the Northern Pacific Railroad Company and financing its construction from Lake Superior to Puget Sound. In time, the transcontinental profoundly impacted everywhere it touched, including southwestern Montana. The “iron horse” was slow in coming to the Gallatin Valley, however. The Civil War, the Panic of 1873, conflict with native peoples, and geographic obstacles—all hindered the progress of “the single greatest American corporate undertaking of the nineteenth century.” With each setback, local frustration grew.
Eventually, the Gallatin Valley's established reputation as "the granary of Montana,” together with its proximity to Bozeman Pass and its sizable coal reserves, attracted the Northern Pacific’s attention. On January 9, 1882, the railroad purchased local property and began construction of rail yard and depot. In a matter of months, Bozeman became the oldest town on Montana's Northern Pacific line.
Bozeman did not owe its life to the railroad, but the approach of the Northern Pacific nonetheless caused dramatic changes, even prior to its arrival here. In June of 1882, New York Journalist E. V. Smalley called Bozeman “the best town on the Northern Pacific line west of Fargo” and predicted that the railroad “will develop it as a central distributing and trading point and a desirable residence . . .” Echoing Smalley’s optimistic tone, Bozeman’s Avant Courier observed later that summer that “a much greater than average acreage has been cultivated than usual . . . on account of the railroad . . .” The paper went on to note that “there are the
strongest of evidences that an immense immigration will set in as soon as the season opens.” Anticipating a major building boom, Nelson Story, Walter Cooper, and John Dickerson platted Park Addition—one of the largest subdivisions on Bozeman's affluent southern side. The East Side (later Hawthorne) School at 114 North Rouse, the Masonic Lodge at 137 East Main, the Lamme Building at 29 East Main, and the Spieth and Krug Brewery at 240-246 East Main were constructed in the months surrounding the railroads arrival. On March 21st. 1883, the iron horse steamed into Bozeman to the cheers of a mighty throng. In sweeping oration Judge H. N. Maguire called Bozeman “the destined commercial metropolis of the Northwest,” and proclaimed: "(w)e may now feel that we are part of the great world's business activities." Days later, the town was officially incorporated in recognition of the fact that its days of isolation and uncertainty had ended.
With the railroad's assistance, Bozeman suddenly lurched toward economic and demographic stabilization. Rail connections with distant markets facilitated agricultural mechanization and bolstered productivity. They also inspired increased settlement, agri-business, and tourism. Population levels more than tripled between 1880 and1883. Fred M. Wilson, traveling correspondent for the Helena Herald reported that:
Bozeman has indeed made a proud record during the past twelve months. Her wonderful growth, resulting from the advent of the iron horse . . .has exceeded the anticipations of the most sanguine. Business houses have nearly doubled in number, large and handsome houses now cover tracts of land which a few years ago were beyond the limits of town, the streets are thronged with a busy, hungry crowd, and one who has been absent but a season finds difficulty in recognizing the staid and sober town of the past in the bustling, ambitious city of the present. But the influence of the railroad has diminished considerably in local lives over the last half a century. Rail-dependent employers, such as the Story Mill and the Gallatin Valley Auction Yards have closed, and for the last thirty years, regular passenger service has been unavailable in the area.
Recently, however, discussions have focused on restoring Amtrak’s North Coast Hiawatha route in southern Montana. Spearheading the effort is U.S. Senator Jon Tester, D-Mont. “Amtrak is a lifeline for Montana,” Tester told an overflow crowd at a town hall meeting in Bozeman on May 26, 2009. “It makes sense to put all options on the table when we’re making decisions about our transportation infrastructure and our energy security.” The railroad profoundly impacted the Gallatin Valley’s past. After a long and unfortunate hiatus, it is now conceivable that it will one day return to also influence our future significantly. “Can’t you hear the whistle blowin’?”
Preserving the Northern Pacific/Story Mill Historic District By
B. Derek Strahn, Historic Preservation Consultant
Bozeman has several haunts that, because of their less decorative appearance, have
been under-appreciated for their historic and architectural value. One such place is the Northern Pacific/Story Mill Historic District--a large, L-shaped area in northeast Bozeman that once served as the undisputed transportation hub of southwestern Montana's impressive agricultural economy. Architecturally diverse and reflective of broad patterns of commerce, travel, and settlement, the District contains a meaningful concentration of railroad and manufacturing buildings and other structures dating from 1882 to 1945.
On January 9, 1882 the Northern Pacific purchased a large tract of land northeast of town and began construction of a six-stall masonry roundhouse, a light maintenance yard, and a modest wood frame depot. As the railroad completed these facilities, Nelson Story Sr. created a large flour milling complex near the mouth of Bridger Canyon, where Rocky Creek, Bozeman Creek and Bridger Creek merge to form the East Gallatin River. During the summer of 1882, Bozeman’s wealthiest citizen financed the excavation a two-mile canal system, eventually diverting water from all of these streams to generate the power needed to mill an initial capacity of 100 bushels a day. Recognizing the advantages presented by the railroad, the consummate capitalist then sold a right of way across his land for the construction of what remained the Valley's longest and most heavily used rail spur--commonly referred to as the Story Mill spur line. When the iron horse steamed into Bozeman in March of 1883, Story’s mill became the first local business directly serviced by the railroad and, in less than two years, “the largest flour mill in Montana.” The interrelated influences of railroading and the growth of local markets like the Story Mill significantly increased the number and size of Gallatin Valley farms and ranches during the latter nineteenth century. Wheat rapidly became the premiere cash crop in what promoter’s called “the Egypt of America,” and Bozeman’s agricultural economy flourished. Fire caused significant changes in the Northern Pacific/Story Mill Historic District on two separate occasions. In 1891, sparks from a passing steam engine damaged the original Northern Pacific passenger/ freight depot and gave reason to construct a new brick facility at 829 Front Street the following year. When a subsequent fire destroyed the original Story Mill complex on August 27, 1901, the Story family rebuilt an even larger facility in brick. Resuming production in 1904 under the name the Bozeman Milling Company, it operated day and night with a milling capacity of 650 bushel barrels daily.
Story’s successful example soon attracted other railroad-dependent businesses to the District, including: the F. L. Benepe and Farmer's Alliance grain elevators on Front Street (now demolished); the Ryan Fruit and Vegetable Company at 720 Front Street; the John Mitchell general warehouse at 706 Front Street; the Ellis Brindle and Company implement warehouse at 725 East Cottonwood Street; and various other warehouse distributors. During the 19teens, seed pea operations, such as the Peninsular Seed and Brotherton/Kirk Seed Companies, located nearby. Following the arrival of the Chicago, Milwaukee and Saint Paul Railroad in 1910, the volume of agricultural and railroad activity intensified. Dry land farming techniques and greater mechanization generated a surplus of hard milling wheat for shipments to markets outside of Montana. When the Milwaukee Road announced its plans to build a second spur line to the mill in 1914, the Storys expanded elevator capacity to 500,000 bushels and commissioned local architect Fred Willson to design a new flour warehouse capable of servicing both the Northern Pacific and the Milwaukee Road simultaneously. In the years that followed, the 1000-bushel-barrel-a-day Company regularly shipped flour and cereals throughout the Northwest and occasionally sent products as far as Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Japan. The early 1920s signified a transition in the Northern Pacific/Story Mill Historic District. Montana Flour Mills Company, a conglomerate with flour mills in Great Falls, Harlowtown and Lewistown, Montana, purchased the Bozeman Milling Company for $350,000 and soon erected six attached eight-story concrete grain storage units at the mill. Moreover, and active tourist economy increased passenger service and prompted the Northern Pacific to hire Fred Willson to remodel and expand its Front Street passenger station in 1924. The Great Depression and World War II brought further changes to the Northern Pacific/Story Mill Historic District. The Montana Flour Mills Company profited by providing products for Roosevelt's New Deal assistance programs, and two notable businesses--the Vollmer and Sons Slaughterhouse complex and the neighboring Gallatin Valley Auction Yards--were constructed at the northern end of the District near the Story Mill. Following the 1941 bombing of Pearl Harbor, the mill ran non-stop with “days and days of nothing but governmental flour going out." Bozeman’s largest private employer also supplied some of the nation's largest distributors, including: Pillsbury, Safeway Stores, Roman Meal and Wonder Bread. Due to the popularity of Montana's hard red, high glutton content wheat, the Bozeman Mill eventually shipped flour to nearly every state in the union, including Alaska, where Gallatin Valley Flour was frequently delivered by dog sled.
Following the Second World War, technological changes and diminishing railroad business led to the abandonment and demolition of many railroad structures in the Bozeman area, including: the Northern Pacific's roundhouse and turntable, coaling dock, water tower, section house and track scale. Decreasing passenger and freight traffic to motor vehicles also negatively impacted several rail-dependent enterprises, including the Story Mill, which ceased regular operations during the late 1960s. Despite the significant changes experienced since World War II, the remaining architecture and physical configuration of the Northern Pacific/Story Mill Historic District visually convey several broad patterns of development that played a central role in Bozeman's history. Placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1996, the District remains a potent vestige of the region's economic development between 1882 and 1945. It also serves as a needed reminder that historic preservation is about more than simply saving a few big, beautiful mansions. The historic architectural remnants of Bozeman’s working people have a story to tell, and that story is worth remembering.
No Longer Home on the Range By B. Derek Strahn, Historic Preservation Consultant Ranchers from as far away as Havre and Augusta once drove cattle to auction here in Bozeman, and sometimes as many as 3500 head were sold in a single day. But last summer, the staccato shouts of auctioneers and bidders fell silent, and the dust finally settled at 1018 Griffin Drive. The historic Bozeman Livestock and Sales Company had finally shut down. For nearly seventy years, this important National Register of Historic Places landmark at the intersection of Story Mill Road and Griffin Drive embodied the spirited vitality of the area’s ranching industry. Now, a new facility in Three Forks that offers better truck access and holding pens, serves as a reminder that who we were once were is changing, and changing fast. Farming and ranching, it seems, are far less central to Bozeman’s identity, though all around us the remnants of a once-proud way of life continue to haunt our memories. The livestock industry has a long history in the Bozeman area. As early as 1866, Nelson Story completed one of the longest cattle drives in American history and successfully trailed a sinewy herd of 600 cantankerous longhorn cattle from Texas to southwestern Montana. It was the reportedly one of the first cattle drives north of the Platte River, and the effort laid the foundation for cattle ranching in this part of Montana. Although Story’s cattle ranged primarily along the Upper Yellowstone River in Paradise Valley, Charles Anceney and others soon followed his lead and developed extensive cattle ranching interests in Gallatin and Madison County. As early as 1884, local newspapers reported his sale of 1,300 head of cattle at $50 each. By 1894, Anceney and his son, Charles Jr., had accumulated 16,000 acres in the rough uplands of Gallatin and Madison Counties. Together they formed the Charles L. Anceney Land Company. When a saddle horse crushed the family patriarch, his ambitious son enlisted the assistance of eastern capital and expanded his father’s initial holdings “into a princely domain of 120,000 acres.” Here, the younger Anceney, in partnership with Harry W. Childs and Harry L. Stimson, grazed as many as 14,000 head of shorthorn cattle on the lush green hills between the Madison and Gallatin Rivers.
In addition, they wintered 1,800 horses, which were used in Yellowstone National Park during the summer months. In time, this “cowboy’s heaven” was incorporated as the Flying D—the largest stock-raising operation in Montana during the early decades of the twentieth century. Shipping cattle from this thriving operation was such a regular occurrence that the Northern Pacific Railroad financed construction of an industrial spur line from Manhattan, Montana, to the northern boundary of the Flying D. A complex maze of wooden loading shoots and corrals defined the busy rail siding known as “Anceney,” a few miles west of what today is known as Four Corners. Sadly, most of the physical structures comprising this historically significant site were recently dismantled. In the days before interstate trucking, railroads were critically important to a stockman’s success. Back then, “all the cattle went to Chicago,” remembered area rancher Anthony Gafke in a 1993 interview. And where the cattle went, the cowboys went too. “They had an old coach with sleeping bunks all along it, and if there were more than ten or fifteen men, they’d put up two of them,” Gafke recalled. “We stayed in there and rode down with the cattle.” The trip to Chicago was longer than one might expect. “Sometimes it took seven or eight days,” Gafke remembered, because “you had to feed the cattle about every forty hours or so. They had places all along the line, like Miles City and South St. Paul.” Sometimes taking an entire month from beginning to end, the trip to Chicago was often a highlight in hard-working cowboy’s year. “We looked forward to that every fall,” he recollected, “because you got a free trip.” The exchange companies in the “city of broad shoulders” paid for virtually everything. The stock-raising opportunities were golden. Soon Herefords and Aberdeen Angus, Guernsies and Brown Swiss dotted the fertile Valley. Profits from beef and dairy interests multiplied. By height of the Great Depression, local agriculturalists received more of their income from livestock and livestock products than from crops. This economic reality prompted the development the Gallatin Valley Auction Yards on Story land, directly across from the Story Mill complex.
The yards were originally the locus of the Story family’s livestock operation in the region. “We took the chaff and the residue from the flouring and . . . put it in the dust houses to fatten the cattle on it,” remembered grandson Malcolm Story. The area contained a variety of corrals and barns that had been utilized by the family as early as the mid-1880s. In 1939, Malcolm Story incorporated many of these original structures into the Gallatin Valley Auction Yards. Initially managed by Howard Raser, “a dean of auctioneers in fourteen states,” the Gallatin Valley Auction Yards were historically significant because they provided a local market for ranchers living in southwestern Montana. “These sale barns that came in here in the thirties were a boon to the livestock grower,” remembered Malcolm Story in 1990, “because he could go right down there, and if the price wasn’t right . . . he could take them back out to the ranch.” Put simply, “there was competition.” After Story was up and running, it was a whole different ballgame. “After the thirties come, they got yards out in the country,” recalled Anthony Gafke, “and that stopped the shipping to Chicago.” “It was a great thing for the farmers when those little stockyards came in,” Gafke concluded. By 1947, the Wednesday sales at the Livestock Commission “were among the most popular in the entire state of Montana,” according to the Intermountain Press. The pictorial magazine reported that between February and October of 1947, the gross sales on livestock through the Commission totaled $1,365,734.00. “We loaded a lot of cattle, a lot of sheep, and even some horses in those days,” remembered railroad man Warren McGee in a 1993 interview. On big sale days “we’d work sometimes until midnight taking care of them.” Slaughterhouse operator Joseph Vollmer remembered that as many as fifty carloads of animals were shipped out on a single day during the heyday of the yards. Along the Story Mill Spur, “the train was running clear up back toward town,” he noted.
Today, this once-bustling center of activity has quieted considerably, but new ideas are surfacing about how best to revitalize this historic property at the north end of Bozeman’s Northern Pacific Story Mill Historic District. The down home Stockyard Café still operates on site, and across the road, developers have recently purchased the long-neglected Story Mill. What will happen next remains to be seen, but the likelihood that cowboys and cattle will be part of the picture seems unlikely at best.