The district extends from the river on the north to Sixth Street on the south and from South Higgins Avenue on the east and South Orange on the west. Primarily residential, the district contained (in 1991) 219 contributing buildings and 76 non-contributing. There is a small commercial area in the district, running down Higgins Avenue and west a block or so on Sixth Street.
The district contains the first two churches erected on the south side and the Milwaukee Railroad Depot, which is listed independently in the register.
Coordinates given are at the first church to be built in the district, the Congregationalist Church on Fifth Street South. It is also the address provided below and the church pictured below.
Missoula Southside Historic District
At the time of its incorporation as a city in 1883, Missoula was a growing but still rather small town, located wholly on the north side of the Clark Fork River. South of the river, there existed only a few scattered dwellings and ranches, accessed by a narrow bridge located approximately where the Higgins Avenue Bridge crosses today. However, the major expansion of the city during the late 1880s and early 1890s changed this situation in a short period of time. Largely through the efforts of Judge Hiram Knowles, what is known today as the southside neighborhood was platted by the end of 1890. The Southside Historic District includes some or all of two separate additions: Knowles Addition #1 (platted in 1889) and Knowles Addition #2 (1890). By 1902, when the Sanborn Fire Insurance Company first mapped the entire district, this newly platted area contained at least forty residences.
By the early 1890s, enough people had moved to the south side to require the extension of several community services across the river. In 1890 a 10-inch pipe was laid under the Clark Fork River from Pattee Street on the north side to bring water to southside homes.
Within two years, the southside neighborhood contained some three miles of water pipe.
Electric lights, first installed along South Third Street West to Orange Street in 1890, reached the southern limits of the Stephens and Bickford Addition by the following year. The widening of the Higgins Avenue bridge in 1893 allowed the extension of street railway tracks across the river. By 1894, horse-drawn street cars ran from the Northern Pacific depot, up South Higgins to South Fourth Street and then west to the 900 block of South Fourth, the original location of the University of Montana. Electric street cars replaced the horse-drawn variety in 1910, and continued to operate in the city until 1932.
1892 saw the neighborhood's first Gothic Revival style structure, constructed for the First Congregational Church at 345 S. 5th W. Started as a much smaller version of the present building, a growing congregation necessitated enlargement ca.1898. The church exhibits the characteristic decorative trusses, tower with crenelated parapet and Gothic arched stained glass windows. While evoking the images of the great Gothic cathedrals of Europe in its vocabulary, this small church maintains an approachability that must have welcomed the neighborhood residents to its door.
In 1905, the Garden City Commercial College was constructed at 120 South Fourth West, one block south of the Knowles Block. This three-story brick Queen Anne building designed by A.J. Gibson, a prominent Missoula architect, is a beautiful example of Queen Anne styling with its "candle-snuffer" roof on the tower, multiple gabled dormers, classical porch pediment, wooden dentilation and Doric columns.
A further indication of the growing middle class in Missoula is seen in the expansion and relocation of the Garden City Commercial College, founded by Edward C. Reitz. Reitz started the school in the First National Bank Building realized that such small quarters could not accommodate the high enrollments. In 1907, Reitz moved the college across the river to a building on North Higgins in 1893, but soon designed for the college by A.J. Gibson at 124 South Fourth West. In this new 24-room facility, students learned bookkeeping, commercial law, calculation, civil government, shorthand, grammar and
typewriting, among other business skills. Reitz sold the school in 1912 to former Butte educator Edwin Koch.
1915 saw the completion of the district's second church, the First Presbyterian Church, located in the 200 block of South Fifth West. This Gibson-designed large brick Gothic Revival cathedral displays a pointed arch, stained glass windows and an enormous square bell tower on the northeast corner of the building. The original massing of this church has been retained through the compatible addition of office and new entrances accomplished in 1973.