Historic preservation group asks city to allow Boston Barn stabilization project
The joint city-county Historic Preservation Advisory Commission is asking the City Commission to allow it to install fencing around the Boston and Montana Barn and to solicit bids over the winter for its stabilization.
Rich Ecke, an HPAC member leading the group’s barn committee, told commissioners during their Nov. 18 work session that they’d raised about $30,000 since the spring toward the project and that stabilizing the barn gives preservationists more time to fundraise toward the full reconstruction effort and to “preserve a precious slice” of community history.
“Please give us time to raise additional dollars,” Ecke said, choosing preservation over destruction.
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The aging barn is in Black Eagle, owned by the City of Great Falls and is the last remaining building owned by the Boston and Montana Consolidated Copper and Silver Mining Company, which built a smelter in Great Falls in the early 1890s and was later acquired by the Anaconda Copper Mining Company, according to HPAC.
Ecke said they’d love to see it become an interpretive center for the history of the smelter and the dams, as well as a potential event center.
That option was included by Cascade County Commissioners in a future use plan for the former smelter site, which is has also been designated a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency superfund site.
Commissioner Susan Wolff said that the group would need to raise more money to transform the barn from its current state to an interpretive or event center, but she thinks about the 9th Street Bridge and how long it took to save that historic structure.
She said she was concerned about the liability of people getting into the barn and the contaminated soils around the barn.
Commissioner Joe McKenney said that he loves the history Great Falls has “and we’re losing it.”
He said there’s historic significance of the smelter site, but “all we have left is that barn” and new generations have no clue what happened there.
McKenney said that if he could be assured safety and liability were addressed, “I’m with you. Let’s save it. Let’s find a way to do it, especially when it’s private sector money.
Ecke said the existing golf course fence is eight or 10 feet tall and connects to the original smelter fence that protects two sides of the barn site, so they want to add fencing to the other two sides to match the existing course perimeter fencing.
“We’re willing to work with the city on this,” Ecke said.
He said the fundraising group wants to solicit bids over the winter and begin stabilization work in March.
“We hope it doesn’t fall down,” Ecke said, but if it collapses, the “whole matter is moot.”
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Commissioner Rick Tryon said that he didn’t think it would last through the winter, but if it did, would their expectation be that the city transfers the parcel to the group?
Ecke said that they intend to create a nonprofit that could then own and manage the site, which is “unique. It’s the last of its kind.”
Tryon said he was concerned with the liability issues for the city and whether it made sense to proceed with the stabilization effort.
Ecke said Cascade County Commissioners had been selective of the project, including the barn as a potential interpretive center in the smelter site plans and approving access to the site through county property, but doesn’t have funding to contribute.
“We’re not asking the city for anything. We want to raise all the money privately and say look at what the community was able to do,” Ecke said.
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Kevin Vining, Great Falls Park and Recreation parks supervisor, told commissioners that staff had been monitoring the barn for years and the concern was the “exponential rate of active failure” it’s currently in.
There were some previous stabilization efforts but with the north roof collapse, he said it was putting undue burden on the stabilizing cables and once that fails, it will likely collapse, Vining said.
He said Park and Rec staff respected HPAC’s efforts to save the barn and they’re willing to help, but believe the barn is in a concerning condition.
Vining said the barn project had been in the queue for about 20 years and staff is concerned about cost for stabilization and then reconstruction costs.
Ecke said they’re prepared to spend $30,000 on the fencing to move forward, but will check with donors since some have said they’d like their funds returned if the building can’t be saved.
If the whole thing fell down, “it would just basically be a real bummer,” Ecke said.
Mayor Cory Reeves said he can’t support the project that “reeks of liability to me.”
At this point, he said, “unfortunately, the barn is toast.”
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Reeves asked City Manager Greg Doyon if the property was city parkland, to which Doyon said staff would need to look at the deed and whether there are any conditions on the property.
Doyon said he “can’t answer that tonight.”
Wolff said that they needed to wait since city staff hadn’t investigated and given them all the necessary information to make a decision.
Doyon said there were some details that would need to be explored, such as the donation process, any deed restrictions, access and what if the city donates the property and then the barn collapses.
He said Mother Nature would take her toll over the winter.
“If it lasts maybe it’s meant to be,” Doyon said, that they explore other options for preserving the barn.
In their written report submitted to commissioners for the Nov. 21 meeting, HPAC members wrote that their overwhelming recommendation was to save the barn, but if it could not be saved, their preferred alternative was the installation of an interpretive panel at the site, though it has limited access.
The Nov. 21 meeting wasn’t the first time the HPAC group had asked the city for time to fundraise toward the project.
HPAC has been discussing the barn for several years and last year, asked commissioners to wait through the winter to make a decision concerning its future.
Last fall, the former Park and Rec director said he didn’t think the barn would survive the winter, but it has, through in continuing disrepair.
In 2021, the joint-city county Historic Preservation Advisory Commission passed a resolution asking the governing bodies of the city and county to help financially support an engineering study to determine the barn’s condition and options to preserve it. The group also committed $10,000 toward the effort to save the barn through a $5,000 grant from the National Trust for Historic Preservation and $5,000 from the city’s Christmas ornament sales.
The Big Sky County National Heritage Area Inc. contributed $10,000 toward the initial assessment that the city contracted with Cushing Terrell for in 2023 for $17,900.
During a September 2024 HPAC meeting, the group voted to recommend to the City Commission to continue efforts to preserve the barn.
City staff decided no to put it on that fall commission agenda since it wasn’t asking for anything other than to wait through the winter, so Doyon gave an update instead.
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At the time, HPAC said it would see if the structure survived the winter, then make financing decisions.
The barn was also discussed during the Oct. 14, 2024 Park and Recreation Advisory Board meeting.
Steve Herrig, former Park and Rec director, told the board that “the roof has begin to collapse” and the Oct. 4 wind storm didn’t help, but didn’t cause more significant damage.
He said that HPAC still wanted to try to save the structure, but “it’s one of those things, if you wanted to save this barn it probably needed to be done 20 years ago.”
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During that October 2024 park board meeting, Herrig said, “from staff’s perspective, it’s pretty bad.”
The structure is currently fenced off and Herrig said that it would probably be cheapest to have someone come in to salvage lumber from the barn rather than pay for demolition.
But, he said it might be a moot point, if the structure doesn’t survive the winter.
During the April 12, 2023 HPAC meeting, Tony Houtz, an architect with Cushing Terrell, discussed their plans for shoring up and stabilizing the barn so that HPAC can look at further restoration later.
Houtz said there’s not much left of the foundation and the roof is deteriorating. The plan included placing plywood sheathing and a membrane over the roof to keep water and snow out and buy a few more years for the roof.
Houtz said the plan would close up windows with some screening to allow ventilation, and temporarily frame in the foundation to keep rodents out. That would have access panels to the underside of the structure and for ventilation.
To avoid damaging the historic integrity of the structure, Houtz said they’d screw coverings into the exterior siding around windows and doors, leaving a few with screens for ventilation.
The cost estimate to stabilize the barn is $576,000, Houtz said in 2023. The estimate does not include project management costs and the project was not funded.
In a September 2024 update, TD&H told HPAC that “the entire north roof system will now require full removal and replacement. There is remote possibility that some of the members of the existing roof system could be retained for reuse, but due to their age and the importance of the roof structure, it is recommended that the entire north roof structure be removed and replaced following stabilization of the perimeter bearing walls, restructuring of the window and door headers, and the central core construction. All new sheathing, weather barrier, and roofing would need to occur and connection to the south roof structure would need to be carefully considered for movement and differing construction types. All three cupolas would need to be reconstructed entirely, flashed and weatherproofed.
Overall, it is our anticipation that the collapse of the roof will increase cost expectations for the scope outlined in the report, requiring more labor and material to reach a fully secure, enclosed and protected building for preservation.”
The barn is a two-story, wood framed, gable-roofed structure with a sandstone foundation built in a T-plan oriented north-south on the south end of the Anaconda Hills golf course, according to the city-county historic preservation office.
The barn has served a variety of uses over more than a century.
For an unknown period, it served as a fire station for the ACM facility with three finished bedrooms housing firemen on the northwest wall of the west wing, which was protected by a sprinkler system, according to the city-county historic preservation office.
According to oral reports in a city-county historic preservation office background on the barn, firemen played basketball on the second floor of the east wing and removed structural supports to have a clear playing space, weakening the structural system.
The barn was used for automobiles and storage in 1929 and in 1950, the second floor had a gymnasium while the first floor continued to be used for storage and vehicles, according to city documents.
The city Park and Recreation Department used the barn for golf cart and other recreational storage needs until it became too dilapidated, according to city documents.
According to the 2021 HPAC resolution, the smelter-refinery was the area’s larger employer and provided much of the copper for the Allied war effort during World Wars I and II.
“There was a common saying that ‘copper from Great Falls wired the world,’” according to the HPAC resolution.
The smelter closed in 1980 and the structures on the property were demolished or moved.
The barn is the only remaining structure from the company, according to HPAC.
“The building is of significant historical value, the last structure still standing that represents the greatest industrial era in Great Falls history. But it is in danger of collapse and destruction,” according to the HPAC resolution.
