Group continuing effort to save Boston Barn in Black Eagle
The Great Falls-Cascade County Historic Preservation Advisory Commission voted during a special meeting on Oct. 26 to spend up to $5,000 on an engineering evaluation of the Boston and Montana Barn.
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.
It’s long been vacant and deteriorating, but a local committee has been fundraising and working to save the barn in the hopes of turning into an interpretive center for the history of the smelter and the dams, as well as a potential event center. That dream is a multimillion-dollar project.
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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.
Last winter, the group erected a temporary fence to secure the site with a $24,195 donation from the late Owen Robinson and his wife, Gayle.
Richard Ecke, an HPAC member leading the charge to save the barn, said they’d been working with Cushing Terrell and TD&H for an initial assessment and continued review but had reached a point that a formal engineering assessment is needed.
“We can’t just sort of wing this and try and do it yourself on the design,” Ecke said during the Oct. 26 meeting. “It’s important; there’s safety for everybody involved.”
He said once that assessment is completed, they can hire a contractor to perform the most pressing stabilization work to buy more time for further fundraising to preserve and restore the barn.
Ecke said during the Oct. 26 meeting that HPAC has the authority to spend the funds raised by the barn committee.
No city funds are being spent on this project.
Ecke said some of the major, immediate issues include a beam rotted from water damage, safety issues and supports to stabilize the barn.
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A section of the north wall is mostly plumb, he said, until it’s not at a section that’s sticking out about two feet and kinda tipping over.
Ecke said contractors would presumably use a crane to lift out felled timbers and remove the cupola that’s in good condition to preserve it for future renovation.
Ecke said the group applied for a $350,000 historic preservation grant through the Montana Department of Commerce, but it requires legislative approval so they won’t know if they’ve received that funding until the spring.
The group has raised $110,000 so far toward the project, including the $24,195 for the fence and $20,000 for an initial assessment.
Historic preservation group looking at options to save Boston and Montana Barn in Black Eagle [2023]
In November 2025, Ecke presented the barn project status during a City Commission work session.
During that meeting, 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.
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 supportive 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.
During the November 2025 meeting, 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.”
In their written report submitted to commissioners for the November 2025 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 November 2025 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 in 2024, asked commissioners to wait through the winter to make a decision concerning its future.
That year, the former Park and Rec director said he didn’t think the barn would survive the winter, but it has, though continuing to deteriorate.
In 2021, HPAC 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 not 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 begun 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.
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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.
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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.
