McCormick Neighborhood Historic District
Ancestors of the Salish and Pend d’Oreille lived in this area for thousands of years, and tribal members continued to gather bitterroot in South Missoula into the 1960s. The neighborhood’s non-Indian development accelerated after construction of the Bitterroot Valley Railroad in 1887. Judge Hiram Knowles purchased a large tract from rancher Saron Blain for $2,200, platting the Knowles Additions in 1889 and 1890. It proved a good investment, and in the first year real estate speculators purchased over 220 lots from Knowles. The neighborhood infrastructure grew quickly. Electric lights were installed from South Third to South Orange and water pipes lined some blocks as early as 1891. Nevertheless, most construction awaited the arrival of the Milwaukee railroad in 1908. Neighborhood businesses included a flour mill, lumber mills, the Bitterroot Valley Railroad (whose tracks mark the historic district’s western boundary), and the Missoula Gas and Coke Company, all of which provided work for many McCormick residents. Other residents caught the streetcar to jobs downtown or ran their own businesses as contractors, grocers, or restaurateurs. By 1912, buildings occupied almost every lot; later development often occurred on quarter or half lots, with many homeowners converting outbuildings into rental properties. Although construction of the Orange Street Bridge in 1937 transformed the district’s eastern boundary into a busy commercial throughway, most of the neighborhood retains the same features that attracted earlier residents: well-built homes, peaceful streets, proximity to recreation, particularly McCormick Park (founded in 1938), and easy access to downtown.
MacGregor/Heydorf House
McCormick Neighborhood Historic District
Typically two-and-one-half stories, with a low hipped roof and large central dormer, American Foursquares were economical to build and comfortable to live in. Their rectangular plan maximized living space without adding expense. This brick example is one of the “Three Sisters,” three very similar…
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Reed Residence
McCormick Neighborhood Historic District
Hilda Reed purchased this lot for $600 on January 16, 1907, shortly after she moved to Missoula with her husband Theodore, their daughter, Hulda, and her brother-in-law Andrew. A second daughter, Theodora, arrived shortly thereafter. Both carpenter-contractors, Theodore and Andrew almost certainly…
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528 South Third Street West
McCormick Neighborhood Historic District
As one of the first paved streets in Missoula, South Third Street West became a desirable middle-class address and a major thoroughfare in the 1890s. Electric lights lit the street at night and by 1894, a horse-drawn streetcar provided public transportation; fifteen years later an electric trolley…
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642 South Fifth Street West
McCormick Neighborhood Historic District
Elegant Colonial Revival and classical stylistic elements define the architecture of this two-and-one-half-story residence. Round columns support the open front porch while hipped roof dormers add living space and light. Boxed eaves, an ornately bracketed cornice, and dentils (toothlike…
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618-620 South Fifth Street West
McCormick Neighborhood Historic District
Arrival of the Milwaukee Railroad in 1908 created a new demand for housing. Now a four-plex but originally a duplex, this flat-roofed, two-story rental property was undoubtedly built to help fill the market for appropriate, middle-class housing. Eminently modern and respectable, the circa 1910…
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Wright Residence
McCormick Neighborhood Historic District
The distinctive gambrel roof defines the Dutch Colonial style. The style takes its name from farmhouses Dutch settlers built in rural New York and New Jersey in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. However, twentieth-century Dutch Colonial Revival style homes only loosely resembled their…
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Henry Tripp Residence
McCormick Neighborhood Historic District
German immigrants Henry Tripp and his wife Johanna were the first known owners of this home, which they occupied by 1910. Henry was in the cement contracting business, but he and Johanna also maintained a lucrative cottage industry breeding poultry. They acquired the parcel west of their home,…
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808 South Sixth Street West
McCormick Neighborhood Historic District
Norwegian brothers Theodore and Andrew Reed arrived in Missoula in 1907. The ambitious and experienced carpenters purchased multiple building lots in the Knowles Addition and set to work. They built this one-and-one-half-story gable-front residence in 1908. At the time of its construction, John…
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