Montana’s Historic Sites on the National Register of Historic Places – Michael Ober
There are over one thousand sites in Montana listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) with more being added each year. They range from eye candy to low brow. Most of them are private residences in towns large and small, but they also include captivating stories surrounding the traditional churches, banks, train depots, mansions, bridges and barns. Drill down further into the list and you will find even deeper stories. There is a creamery, a radio station, hotels, an oil field sign, a Depression era airway beacon on the Continental Divide that guided mail planes, a few irrigation ditches, a gas station, pump stations and “Froggy’s stopping off place on the Whoop-up Trail.”
This conversation will begin with a brief discussion on how potential sites are nominated and what the procedure is to bring them into the larger list. An illustrated (PowerPoint) presentation will follow featuring a sampler of sites focused chiefly on Montana’s “built landscapes” and how they fit to the historical themes of our state’s development.