Old Scobey moved here from the Poplar River flats in 1913 to meet the approaching Great Northern Railway branch line, and by Thanksgiving Day, when the first train arrived, the two-story Commercial Hotel, now the south half of the courthouse, was the largest building on the new townsite. The hotel served passengers and visitors until 1915, when Minnie "One-Eyed Molly" Wakefield came from Kansas City and bought it. She expanded the hotel with gambling and live entertainment, and she and her sons kept pit bulls for fighting between her hotel and the neighboring Tallman Hotel. Along with drinking, gambling, and dog fighting, women were a main attraction, with much of the first floor devoted to that trade while a large upstairs sleeping room housed legitimate overnight guests. Molly left in 1917 after Prohibition and federal closure of red-light establishments hurt her business. In 1920, voters selected Scobey over Madoc as the seat of the newly designated Daniels County by a vote of 964 to 358, and county officials bought the hotel and remodeled the interior. A north addition in 1927 doubled the space and preserved and extended the original false front. Built in the Western False Front style that once was common across Montana and gave young communities an appearance of instant prosperity, the building later used its upper porch as a speaking platform for governors, senators, and visiting dignitaries. Painted white, it remains Montana's last functioning false-front frame courthouse and perhaps the West's only bordello converted to government use.