426 North First Street West

In 1890, the Ross House, a large hotel complex occupying half this block, housed one hundred thirty-seven Missoulians, mostly railroad workers. Ten years later, a covered walkway still linked the two-story wooden building on this site, home to white day laborers and their families, with the next-door boarding house for Japanese railroad section men. Between 1902 and 1909, the block lost its large boarding houses but kept its working-class character and connection to the railroad. By 1909, Northern Pacific engineer Arthur Rogers and his sister Marguerite lived in this wood-framed residence, built after the boarding houses were demolished. During the 1930s, Frank Pfau, a packer for the Northern Flour Mill, lived here with his wife Katie and their nine children. The hipped-roof house, with a large front gable, is more elaborate than many in the neighborhood and includes Queen Anne style details such as turned porch supports and crown casing over the gable window.

Missoula, Montana · United States