While not completed until 1904, a proposal for the Helena Federal building, shown here, was already extant by 1895.
The architect, who may or may not have been James Knox Taylor, chose Renaissance Revival as the building's style. In 1933 a $320,000 addition was made to the west side of the building, then, in the summer of 1935 earthquakes shook the town severely damaging many buildings, even destroying some. The Federal Building was spared, however, sustaining minor damage, which was repaired in short order.
The construction of a new post office in 1976 and a new Federal Building in 1977 made this building available for the offices of the City of Helena and Lewis & Clark County, which remain in the building today. It is now known as the City-County Building.
Still standing strong, [the Federal Building] serves today as the City-County Building. It's been a popular postcard subject over the past century, and was even pictured on souvenir china. The supervising architect was James Knox Taylor.
The U. S. Post Office occupied the first floor, with banks of mailboxes and several service windows in the lobby. Just prior to the completion of this building in 1904, the Post Office occupied the entire ground floor and the basement of the Power Block, at the corner of 6th and Main.
In 1976, the main post office moved to 2300 Harris St., just off Cedar St. on the city's northeast side. With the opening of an ugly new Federal Building in 1977 at the south end of Last Chance Gulch, offices of the City of Helena and Lewis & Clark County moved into the Park Avenue building.
The large addition to the rear (west side) of the building was completed in 1934 at a cost of $320,000 (about $5 million in 2006 dollars). It is faced with Columbus sandstone quarried in Stillwater County, the same stone used for the state capitol. In the fall of 1934, the grounds were plowed up in preparation for the extensive landscaping of 1935, performed by the State Nursery and Seed Co. of Helena. The fence was replaced by a hedge of Russian Olive.
From Helena History
The Helena Story
When on May 26th, 1864, Montana became a new territory, its temporary capital became Bannack, a small isolated log, brick, and wood frame gold mining camp. Today a ghost town and a National Historic Landmark, Bannack soon ceded its position as capital to Virginia City, an equally isolated wooden gold mining camp. Virginia City, the scene of the richest placer gold strike in the Rocky Mountains had, by 1865, most of Montana's population and so was named the territorial capital. However, as was always the case, new gold strikes caused the miners to move on, this time to rich new diggings at Last Chance Gulch at Helena. The population of Virginia City shrank as that of Helena grew. As a result the territorial capital was moved from Virginia City to Helena in 1875.
The discovery of gold in Helena's Last Chance Gulch in 1864 created the impetus for the creation of a city in the environs, a city which was ultimately to become, first the capital of Montana Territory, then, in 1889, Montana State. The presence of Helena's gold would attract the men who would build the State of Montana while making many of them hugely wealthy. Helena came to be touted as the "The richest city, per capita, in the world".
By 1888, about 50 millionaires lived in Helena, more per capita than in any city in the world. They had made their fortunes from gold. About $3.6 billion (in today's dollars) of gold was taken from Last Chance Gulch over a 20-year period. The Last Chance Placer is one of the most famous placer deposits in the western United States. Most of the production occurred before 1868. Much of the placer is now under the streets and buildings of Helena. (As late as the 1970s, when repairs were being made to a bank, a vein of placer gold was found under the bank's foundation).
From Wiki
On November 8, 1889 the dreams of many Montanans were fulfilled when Montana was proclaimed a state by President Benjamin Harrison. The (temporary) capital was still Helena at that time, but the citizenry was promised that in the general election of 1892 the question of where the permanent state capitol should be would be put to a vote. When 1892 rolled around there were seven cities competing for a place on the ballot, Helena, Deer Lodge, Butte, Bozeman, Great Falls, Boulder and Anaconda - Helena and Anaconda advanced. A bitter fight ensued between
Marcus Daly, one of the three "Copper Kings" of Butte, essentially the "King" of Anaconda, and the citizens of Helena. It was not only a "bitter" fight, but a "dirty" one as well, votes reportedly being bought at $5 to $6 each.
Needless to say, Helena won the popular vote, though by a slim margin, to become the permanent capital of Montana. Helena, of course, had no capitol building, but did have a very nice courthouse, constructed in 1885-86. It had served as the territorial capitol and would serve as the state capitol until the completion of the capitol building in 1902.
When it came time to build the new state of Montana a fancy new capitol building a commission was assembled to set the wheels in motion. The plan they returned proved to be simply too costly for a state as young as Montana and the initial plans, which called for a $500,000 building, were scrapped. To add insult to injury it seems that the members of the commission also planned to skim a few dollars off the top for themselves, creating a scandal which resulted in all the original plans and documents being hastily disposed of.
A second commission was raised and began anew. Meanwhile, the legislature authorized a $350,000 bond issue, secured by the 182,000 acres of land granted to Montana by the federal government at statehood. Soon acceptable plans were available for a building to fill the hole already dug in anticipation of the construction of the initially proposed building. The cornerstone was laid on July 4, 1899 and the magnificent new Charles E. Bell & John H. Kent designed
Montana State Capitol was dedicated on July 4, 1902.
Quickly becoming the financial centre of Montana, Helena grew at a rapid pace, with many substantial buildings erected to house the financial, commercial and retail establishments which emerged daily. The wealth of over $3.5 Billion in gold helped the city erect a great many elaborate Victorian buildings. Today they constitute the framework of the
Helena Historic District. While an urban renewal project of the 1970s eliminated something like 70 historic buildings in the downtown core, a great many remain.
Similarly, a large community of government buildings arose surrounding the capitol building, creating the basis for the
Montana State Capitol Campus Historic District.
While the population of the Helena Micropolitan Statistical Area is just under 80,000, the city of Helena's population is nearer to 30,000. In its heyday of feverish placer mining the city's population peaked at somewhere around 100,000.