As Lewistown’s population doubled between 1910 and 1920, housing grew scarce, and newcomers reportedly struggled to find even poor accommodations. G. R. Wiedeman responded to the tight market by constructing a two-story business block with retail space on the first floor and apartments on the second. An energetic businessman and local booster, he was a principal in the Montana Hardware Company and a founder of the Lewistown Electric Light Company and the Lewistown Brick and Tile Company. The 1916 building’s façade was lined with his brickyard’s distinctive “Lewistown red,” while much of the rest of the structure used rubble stone salvaged from the original Montana Hardware Co. building, which Wiedeman and his partners razed in 1916 to erect a larger, more sophisticated business block. The work helped make both Main Street and Broadway, whose development had lagged behind Main, more elegant. After a 1943 fire, the Wiedemans converted the mixed-use building into eight apartments, two occupied by Wiedeman sons Art and Bill.