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 Bestwick's Market - Alberton, MT Posted by:  T0SHEA
N 47° 00.192 W 114° 28.691
11T E 691706 N 5208607
Constructed in 1910, 1915 and sometime in the 1920s, this false fronted wood frame building was one of the earliest commercial buildings to be erected in the new town of Alberton.
Waymark Code: WMWPB9
Location: Montana, United States
Date Posted: 09/26/2017
Views: 0
The Milwaukee Road, in its push across Montana while heading toward the Pacific Coast, arrived at the town of Alberton in 1908 and set about building a depot, railroad shops and a roundhouse, making Alberton a railway division point and assuring it of a reasonably prosperous future, or so it was believed at the time. As a result Joe Boileau, a former planing mill operator, moved to Alberton and built this building in 1910, operating a meat market within. Two short years later Boileau sold the building to a British immigrant, William Bestwick, who operated a " meat market/grocery/frozen foods locker business until the 1950s". While owner of the building, Bestwick made two additions, one around 1915 and a second, smaller addition around 1920-25.
As well, the Masons, Eastern Star, Odd Fellows and other groups met for years in the upper storey, while below, other businesses occupied the building's addition, one being a restaurant and soda fountain. Today the building houses " 100,000 used books" and the Montana valley Book Store. The store was opened in 1978 by a Missoula native and continues in operation in 2017 - quite an accomplishment in a field where the life expectancy of an enterprise is generally measured in years, not decades.
BESTWICK'S MARKET
Established in 1910, this is one of Alberton’s earliest businesses. Joe Boileau, a former foreman of the planing mill at Lothrop, moved to the recently platted Alberton and opened a meat market. The original two-story, western false-fronted commercial building features a simple cornice with brackets and is finished in clapboard sheathing with vertical board corner trim. A 1915 addition widened the structure and continued the false-front motif but at a lower elevation. A second addition, lower in height than the previous, occurred before 1925. For many years, the west second floor served as Alberton’s first Masonic hall and provided meeting space for the Masons, Eastern Star, and Odd Fellows. William A. Bestwick purchased the property in 1912 and operated a meat market, grocery store, and frozen foods locker until the late 1950s. Bestwick immigrated from Alstonefield, England, to Canada in 1909, arriving in the Missoula area shortly before coming to Alberton. In 1915, he married Beatrice Eddy and together they raised three children. Committed to civic involvement, Bestwick served as mayor, as deputy stock inspector for the Nine Mile Stockmen’s Association, as county chairman of U.S. Savings Bonds, as Red Cross director, and was a member of the Alberton Masonic Lodge. The double recessed entrance, a unique feature for a single-business facility, the large plate-glass display windows, intact wood frame, and preserved false-front still retain the feel of Milwaukee Road-era commercial architecture.
From the NRHP plaque at the building
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