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Photo, Print, Drawing Thompson Place, Creek Lodge, 25 Flathead Creek Road, Sedan, Gallatin County, MT Thompson Ranch Mabel Ruth Nicholson Homestead

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[ Drawings from Survey HABS MT-169-A  ]

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[ Data Pages from Survey HABS MT-169-A  ]

About this Item

Title

  • Thompson Place, Creek Lodge, 25 Flathead Creek Road, Sedan, Gallatin County, MT

Other Title

  • Thompson Ranch Mabel Ruth Nicholson Homestead

Names

  • Historic American Buildings Survey, creator
  • Witt, Mabel Ruth Nicholson
  • Nicholson, Richard H.
  • Nicholson, Mary L. Bennett Butland
  • Butland, Mary L. Bennett
  • Thompson, Walter Cameron
  • Thompson, Anna Mae (Hannah May)
  • Burns, Robert LeRoy
  • Burns, Lillian Meyers Martin
  • Landis, Arden Wayne
  • Landis, Verna Lou Gjerde
  • Edwards, Patrick, field team
  • Jirasko, Milenka, field team
  • Weibel, Kluane D., field team
  • O'Neill, Maire, faculty sponsor
  • Montana State University, sponsor
  • McPartland, Mary, transmitter

Created / Published

  • Documentation compiled after 1933

Headings

  • -  agriculture
  • -  ranches
  • -  domestic life
  • -  log buildings
  • -  houses
  • -  Montana--Gallatin County--Sedan

Latitude / Longitude

  • 45.971704,-110.838439

Notes

  • -  2012 Charles E. Peterson Prize, Entry
  • -  Significance: The Thompson Place contains buildings from successive periods of homesteading and settlement in rural Montana. The variety of building forms and construction types are emblematic of the changing conditions of settlement, building technology, and agricultural production. Creek Lodge description: Log building, with unknown date of construction, unknown builder. Original building joinery is half-dovetail notching with hand-hewn logs, remarkable for its precision and tightness in craftsmanship. Later addition built with bark-on notched logs. Situated within a few feet of a creek, 100 years of erosion and no foundation have caused the middle section of the building to partially collapse, but the joinery is still holding tightly. Due to anecdotal evidence and the proliferation of turn-of-the-century artifacts recovered in the creek, it is likely that the building was at one point a blacksmithery. Drawings of this building constitute a "speculative reconstruction" before its collapse. Richard H. Nicolson homesteaded the 160 acres of the Thompson Place in the 1880s. The first patent date is April of 1920, grantor the United States of America, however from contemporary journals it is certain Walter Thompson, an emigrant from Nova Scotia, Canada, was living on it prior to then. Thompson had patented a homestead nearby but left it because of severe drought, and acquired the Thompson Place in 1911. Many early settlers in this valley were unable to survive on 160 acres until the Enlarged Homestead Act of 1909 made it possible to eke out a living of 320 acres. Even so, few settlers were successful and the land reverted to wilderness for decades. The buildings reflect this desperate trend. The first structure, the creek lodge, is exquisitely crafted and very strongly built, while each successive building is of poorer and poorer construction. The land surrounding the homestead is very productive and well-irrigated by the South Fork of the Shields River. The property contains a four-square frame house with an outhouse, a blacksmith shop, and 1/2-story barn, a calving shed, and a chicken coop. Walter Thompson ran cattle and horses on the property and took care of his sister, Anna, who was crippled by a throw from a horse. She died in January of 1930. Walter died in 1952, and they are both buried in the nearby Sedan Community Graveyard, which overlooks his property. Arden and Verna Lou Landis acquired the property in 1952. They have both recently since passed away, and their son William "Bill" W. Landis is a cattle rancher and continues to use the property for calving and haying. Bill and his wife Rebecca lived in the four-square home for the first six months of their marriage in the mid-1970s, but it is now primarily used as a hunting cabin. The chicken coop and outhouse have fallen into disuse and are in an advanced state of decay. The land is still very fertile and is hayed twice a year.
  • -  Unprocessed Field note material exists for this structure: N2398
  • -  Survey number: HABS MT-169-A
  • -  Building/structure dates: before 1890 Initial Construction

Medium

  • Measured Drawing(s): 1

Call Number/Physical Location

  • HABS MT-169-A

Source Collection

  • Historic American Buildings Survey (Library of Congress)

Repository

Control Number

  • mt0586

Rights Advisory

Online Format

  • image
  • pdf

Rights & Access

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  • Rights Advisory: No known restrictions on images made by the U.S. Government; images copied from other sources may be restricted. https://aj.sunback.homes/rr/print/res/114_habs.html
  • Reproduction Number: ---
  • Call Number: HABS MT-169-A
  • Access Advisory: ---

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Cite This Item

Citations are generated automatically from bibliographic data as a convenience, and may not be complete or accurate.

Chicago citation style:

Historic American Buildings Survey, Creator, Mabel Ruth Nicholson Witt, Richard H Nicholson, Mary L. Bennett Butland Nicholson, Mary L. Bennett Butland, Walter Cameron Thompson, Anna Mae Thompson, et al. Thompson Place, Creek Lodge, 25 Flathead Creek Road, Sedan, Gallatin County, MT. Montana Sedan Gallatin County, 1933. translateds by Mcpartland, Marymitter Documentation Compiled After. Photograph. https://aj.sunback.homes/item/mt0586/.

APA citation style:

Historic American Buildings Survey, C., Witt, M. R. N., Nicholson, R. H., Nicholson, M. L. B. B., Butland, M. L. B., Thompson, W. C. [...] Montana State University, S. (1933) Thompson Place, Creek Lodge, 25 Flathead Creek Road, Sedan, Gallatin County, MT. Montana Sedan Gallatin County, 1933. McPartland, M., trans Documentation Compiled After. [Photograph] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://aj.sunback.homes/item/mt0586/.

MLA citation style:

Historic American Buildings Survey, Creator, et al. Thompson Place, Creek Lodge, 25 Flathead Creek Road, Sedan, Gallatin County, MT. trans by Mcpartland, Marymitter Documentation Compiled After. Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <aj.sunback.homes/item/mt0586/>.