Apollo J. Busch House

This late-nineteenth-century Queen Anne style residence, with open air porches, a half-hexagonal bay window, stained glass, and an irregular roofline, was likely built in the mid-1890s from pattern book plans in a fashionable, well-established neighborhood platted in 1883 by William H. Babcock and Will F. Davis. Apollo J. Busch, a career railroader, transferred to Bozeman from Bismarck, North Dakota, in 1896 and brought his family to settle in the substantial brick home. Busch served as section foreman for the Northern Pacific until 1909, when officials persuaded him to supervise construction of the Gallatin Valley Electric Railway, the first electric line west of Chicago. Built as part of Bozeman’s bid for state capital, the electric railway ran directly in front of the home from downtown along Church Street to the Bozeman railway station. Busch later remained railway superintendent when the line became a branch of the Milwaukee Road, and he also served the community as an alderman and in civic organizations. After his death in 1933, he was praised for always standing four square for what was right, and his son Apollo G. Busch continued the family’s civic commitment by serving as mayor pro-tem during World War Two.

Bozeman, Montana · United States