Columbia Falls

Monaco and the Great Northern

St. Richard’s Church stands at 505 W. 4th Ave., and its National Register record names Byrnes Bros. as architects of the Gothic building and gives 1891 and 1892 as its significant years.² Those were the town’s first years: the Columbia Falls Historical Society writes that the place, once known as Monaco, was established in 1891 in anticipation of the Great Northern Railway.¹ Settlers had been in the area long before, but the city was not incorporated until April 26, 1909.¹

The brothers Billy and Mike Berne, who had worked as miners in Butte, came to the upper Flathead in 1889 to speculate on coal in the North Fork country.³ They found better opportunity in the coming of the Great Northern Railway and made brick for many of the new buildings in recently platted Columbia Falls.³ In 1906 Billy bought a small farm from Frieda Herrig at the mouth of Bad Rock Canyon, and Mike farmed west of Columbia Falls for most of his life.³

Mills, Coal and Prefabricated Lookouts

The historical society writes that the early town was known for logging and agriculture, with numerous mills and farms throughout the area.¹ Logging came first, followed by a brief period of mining after coal was discovered in the North Fork region.¹ Four large lumber mills set up in Columbia Falls, and two remain: Plum Creek, now Weyerhaeuser, and Stoltze Land and Lumber.¹

In 1929 the Superior Lumber Company of Columbia Falls put up a garage in Kalispell with patented steel corners and sidewalls that came assembled without nails, and a Montana Historical Society marker calls it the company’s first prefabricated building in that town.⁴ A Forest Service marker in Missoula records that pre-packaged fire lookouts were manufactured in Columbia Falls in 1930 and shipped throughout a four-state region, to be assembled on stilts or bare ground.⁵ The marker stands at the Sliderock Lookout, built in 1930, which stood on Sliderock Mountain southeast of Missoula until it was brought to the museum in 1983.⁵

Hungry Horse Dam and the Aluminum Plant

Hungry Horse Dam was completed in 1951, and Susan Stapley, outreach coordinator of the historical society, said it was then the third largest and second tallest concrete dam in the world.⁶ Stapley said Glacier National Park had around 500,000 visitors at the time, and the dam drew about half as many.⁶ The aluminum plant was completed in 1955.¹ Exhibits at the historical society’s museum trace the rise and fall of the Anaconda Aluminum Co., with items from the plant that were donated before its final closure.⁶ In 1970 the Montana Veterans’ Home in Columbia Falls published a booklet on its own history and future.⁷ Also in the museum are the axes and pots and pans of early settlers, and its walls hold historic maps and photographs of Columbia Falls residents across the decades.⁶