The Belmont, though no longer a hotel, is one of a handful to survive urban renewal in downtown Missoula. About 4 years after its completion another hotel, the Victoria Hotel, was built in 1917 on the south side of the Belmont. It appears in the bottom photo as a third bay with slightly mismatched brick on the right side of the building. Inside the two buildings remain separated from each other.
Belmont Hotel
The Belmont Hotel, at 430 North Higgins Ave., is historically significant due to its association with the period of major growth and development of Missoula as a western Montana industrial and transportation center and as a fine example of early 20th Century commercial/hotel design and construction.
Between 1900 and 1915, a large number of unpretentious, two and three story, masonry hotel buildings were constructed in the immediate
vicinity of the depot. The Belmont Hotel, built ca. 1913, was designed to accommodate the working class clientele travelling by or working for the railroad. Also clustered around the railroad depot were the Shepard, Atlantic, Norden, Workingman's, Couer d'Alene, Brunswick, Park, Florence, Montana, and Western Hotels.
The Belmont Hotel continued in importance as a hotel serving railroad passengers and employees until3 the 1940's when railroad passenger traffic declined drastically.
The Belmont Hotel is a three-story masonry and wood frame structure with a flat roof. The west or front façade is a two bay arrangement with a thickened division which functions as a narrow stair entry on the ground floor. The original ground floor facades have been lost
through changes in function and ownership. The bays of the upper two floors consist of two windows with masonry vertical divisions and inset masonry spandrel panels. The masonry detailing is planar, and rectilinear with a blind arcade corbelled brick cornice. The masonry pattern of the front façade is running bond using a hard salmon-colored face brick imported from outside Montana. Side and rear elevations have segmental brick arched windows and a common bond brick pattern using a softer redder Missoula brick.
From the NRHP Nomination Form