In 1889, as North Dakota, South Dakota, Washington, and Montana entered the Union, German immigrant George Jost was constructing a combination of storefronts and apartments at 2225 Cherokee. Two years earlier he had built the adjacent town houses at 2221 Cherokee. Born in 1853, Jost immigrated to the United States at age 19. A baker by profession, he learned to read and write in English, and he and his German-born wife, Apollonia, were raising two daughters and two sons on Cherokee Street. After a few years, Jost moved his shop a few blocks west, next to the then-new street car line. Another baker, Philip Messerschmitt, who had emigrated from Germany in 1890, then made the building his home and shop, studying English and becoming a naturalized American citizen while he worked and raised his family there.
