Bozeman Hotel Annex - Bozeman, MT
Posted by: Groundspeak Premium Member T0SHEA
N 45° 40.767 W 111° 01.959
12T E 497457 N 5058433
Built in 1890-01, the Bozeman Hotel was then the landmark building in the district. Its annex, completed at the same time, was built to add commercial/retail space. It adjoins the west side of the hotel.
Waymark Code: WMW532
Location: Montana, United States
Date Posted: 07/10/2017
Published By:Groundspeak Premium Member ZenPanda
Views: 0
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Bozeman HotelThat year [1891] marked the completion of three major masonry buildings at the corner of Rouse and Main, intended to rapidly urbanize the city. The Hotel Bozeman, an immense, four story, Romanesque style building and the only one of the three still standing, represented perhaps more than any other single structure, Bozeman's unabashed ambition to win the distinction of state capital in a state-wide vote in 1892. George Hancock, an architect from Fargo, North Dakota, set up a temporary branch office in Bozeman specifically to design and oversee the construction of the hotel, as well as other monumental buildings being erected at the time.

If the long-awaited railroad was the first milestone toward Bozeman's coming of age from an outpost community to a city, the completion of the Hotel Bozeman, also long-awaited, was certainly the second. Calls for a "modern hotel" had appeared in the Avant Courier since the early 1880s. In a letter to that newspaper in 1891, John Vesuvius, as early Bozeman mayor, confided that "Walter Cooper and I once vowed that if ever Bozeman got a railroad and a modern hotel, we'd get drunk.." Indeed, theirs was not the only celebration, for on March 2, 1891, eight years after the Northern Pacific Railroad reached Bozeman, a grand opening celebration took place in the new hotel that rivaled the festivities that ushered in the railroad. The first class hotel, considered an indispensable amenity for any respectable city, was a community effort, $20,000 being raised by local citizens as a "cash bonus," which helped to lure a credulous group of Boston capitalists, who put up $100,000.

The Hotel Bozeman, as well as the other buildings of comparable scale built concurrently, was indicative more of community ambition and optimism rather than the state of the economy. Indeed, these buildings, along with three elaborate residences (all three still standing), comprised virtually the only significant construction in the city during what was an economically depressed decade of the 1890s.

...the Hotel Bozeman (321 E. Main), most notable for its landmark scale and corner orientation, is a vernacular example of the Romanesque style...
From the NRHP Continuation Sheet
See Section number 8, Page 19.
BOZEMAN HOTEL ANNEX

When Montana achieved statehood in 1889, Bozeman was more cowtown than cosmopolitan as it vied with other towns to become the state capital. Architect George Hancock of Fargo, North Dakota put form to Bozeman's aspirations designing several elegant buildings to grace the unpaved, muddy streets. These included the Hotel Bozeman and its two-story annex, completed in 1890. Three real estate firms were the original annex tenants, but by 1900 the Chronicle Publishing Company occupied one of the storefront bays. The firm eventually took over the entire ground floor where, from the turn of the century until 1977, daily issues of the Bozeman Chronicle were published. Architectural motifs and ornamentation visually unify the separate annex and hotel. Rectangular storefront windows with stone lintels and sills mimic the hotel's second and third story windows. The second floor of the annex features rounded windows with linked hood moldings like those on the hotel's fourth floor. Although the annex storefronts have been redesigned, two original stained glass transoms remain intact.
From the plaque at the building
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