Billings, Montana is a really great city, and not just because every third hotel has a water slide, but because there’s so much history stuffed into such a small area, really making Billings worth driving that far out for. One exceptional example is Moss Mansion, and not just because it’s a really cool old house, but because of the man who built it and the family he raised to live there.
You can get an hour-long guided tour of the Moss Mansion Historic House Museum most days and hours of the week just by popping in and wanting to. The tour doesn’t just capture early turn-of-the-century life as the Preston Boyd Moss family lived it, but gives you a glimpse of the dynamo that was Mr. Moss.
He didn’t just live in Billings. He was Billings. He practically lived and died Billings essence, and if you’d have cut him, he’d have bled distillated Billings entrepreneurship.
Sure, visitors get to see the original draperies, fixtures, furniture, Persian carpets and artifacts displayed in the majestic 1903 red sandstone home, which was designed by New York architect Henry Janeway Hardenbergh, designer of the original Waldorf Astoria Plaza Hotels, Williard Hotel, and Copely Hotel, but they get to see much more than that.
They also get to see nappy old hair braids the girls of the house used to look pretty at dance socials.
The house is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, but what’s more historically important to me is that, even though this was the most important family in the region, the kids still had to share bedrooms… Me and my brothers share a bedroom, so maybe I’m richer than I thought I was all along!
The house is fantastic; don’t get me wrong, but what I’m really saying is that the man behind the house is the real story. Mr. Moss became a prominent banking figure when he came out, organized the first dial telephone company in the area, founded a newspaper that was the forerunner to the Billings Gazette, and even started the central heating plant and the Billings Utility Company.
He set up massive irrigation projects, not because he thought it would make him richer, but because he believed in the area and knew it had to be done if the city was going to grow. He developed a sugar factory and the Billings Polytechnic Institute (now Rocky Mountain College).
Heck, even in the early 1900s, Mr. Moss and an associate ran 80,000 head of sheep and several thousand head of cattle. That’s got to count for something, right? I can’t even get the heads at the petting zoo to cooperate with me, so to get that many to go his way is amazing.
The cattle followed him, sure, but the citizens believed in him.
I could talk for days about how eerily awesome the house is, or all the spectacular things he did, but you should check it out for yourself. To learn more about the history of the great man, check it out online at www.MossMansion.com and plan on spending the time for a quick visit when you’re in town.
