Montana State University (MSU) was founded in 1893 as the Agricultural College of the State of Montana. Initially housed in a high school and expanded to a vacant store on Main Street, it saw the opening of the first buildings on campus in 1898. These were the Main Building, now Montana Hall, and the Agricultural Experiment Station, now known as Taylor Hall. Both were constructed beginning in 1896. Expanding rapidly, many more buildings and facilities have been added, with expansions and additions continuing to this day. in 1913 MSU was officially renamed the
Montana College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts and by the 1920s, the school came to be commonly referred to as
Montana State College.
MSU today occupies an 1,170 acre campus serving nearly 17,000 students, with an Academic staff of over 1,300 and an Administrative staff of over 2,000. The largest research enterprise in the state, MSU offers over 250 Undergraduate programs and more than 115 Graduate programs.
Four and a half storeys in height, Montana Hall was one of the first buildings to be built on the campus of MSU, being constructed in 1896 and occupied in 1898. Known for years as
Old Main, it originally housed classrooms and offices, as well as the campus library, while providing the venue for many school activities. Today the building serves as the
Office of the President and administration for the Graduate School, among other things.
The Collegiate Gothic style building may provide the uninitiated with a bit of a conundrum upon a walk-around of the building, IF they happen to be examining the rough sandstone foundation during that walk-around. The building appears to have several dated cornerstones, each with a different year, ranging from 1896 (the actual year of construction) to 1920. All but the "1896" year were actually done by adventuresome vandals 😊 who happened to graduate in the year they deeply inscribed into the building's foundation.
Montana Hall (Main Hall), 1898
(... one contributing building)
Facing north to the city of Bozeman, this four-and-one-half-story Collegiate Gothic style building has served as the centerpiece of the MSU campus since its completion in 1898. Helena, Montana architect J. C. Paulsen designed the building. It exhibits smooth red brick-bearing walls laid in a common bond and a full-daylight basement with a rubble course stone foundation. The building measures 90’ x 100'. The floor plan displays a double-cross arrangement, with two large cross gables flanking a gable-roofed dormer on the north and south elevations and single, centered cross gables on the east and west elevations, all projecting from steeply-pitched hipped roof.
The roof’s slate covering was replaced in about 1943. Removed in 1911 but reconstructed in 1993, Montana Hall’s iconic central cupola graces the ridgeline. The cupola displays a steeply-pitched pyramidal-hipped copper-clad roof with cross gables. Cross timbering decorates the gable ends above decorative screens protecting a chime and bell mechanism. A brick base and frame railing complete the cupola.
Main Hall exhibits the Collegiate Gothic style's characteristic multi-gable massing, vertical orientation, tall one-over-one double hung windows, and a textured, polychrome surface.
Belt courses of tooled sandstone and corbelled and decorative pressed bricks encircle the entire building, dividing the exterior at regular intervals. A tooled sandstone block watertable divides the rubble stone basement and first floor.
The north façade has a number of dates inscribed in its sandstone watertable; from east to west these include "1919", "1917", "1918" and "1920". A small sandstone block below the watertable at the northeast corner of the cross gable is inscribed with the construction date, "1896." A cornerstone at the northeast corner of the east cross gable displays the inscription "Class 1911.”
From the Registration Form