The Original Governor's Mansion
Near Helena, Montana
The Victorian mansion at three oh four North Ewing Street served as Montana's official executive residence for more than forty years. Built in eighteen eighty-eight by entrepreneur William Chessman, the Queen Anne structure passed to the state in nineteen thirteen and housed nine governors before the state completed a new mansion in nineteen fifty-nine. The original building features a round corner tower, wraparound porch, and the kind of decorative woodwork that carpenters called gingerbread, all of it now restored to its late-Victorian appearance.
The Montana Historical Society operates it as a house museum open for public tours. Walking through it is a compact lesson in what frontier wealth considered elegant.
