Constructed circa 1913, the Burgess Garage is the oldest standing building in Lambert. It was built the year the Northwest Improvement Company, a subsidiary of the Northern Pacific Railroad, platted the new townsite, and business there, then under the name Winkes Garage, was already booming when the first train arrived in Lambert in 1914. As one of the first sources of motorized vehicles and machinery in Richland County, it reflected the importance of mechanization in the homesteading boom. By 1915, local physician Dr. George Armour had opened his practice in the front office while Winkes continued operating the garage in the rear. After Winkes died of acute appendicitis in 1918, his widow sold the building to Dr. Armour, who hired two mechanics and ran both his medical practice and the renamed Armour’s Garage there. Drought, agricultural depression, and depopulation led many Lambert businesses to close after World War I, including Armour’s garage and medical practice in 1927. In 1931, Alvin Burgess bought the building from Richland County for $62.00 and reopened the garage, operating it until his death in 1966. Originally built of wood and later covered with stucco early in its history, the building may have been protected by its one-inch stucco during catastrophic fires that burned much of Lambert’s business district in 1923, 1925, and 1931. Now owned by the Lambert Historical Society, it still looks much as it did in the 1920s.