Archives West Finding Aid

The Greenough Mansion in Missoula, Montana, was designed by A.J. Gibson and built by Thomas Greenough in 1894. The mansion was located just south of Greenough Park on ground now covered by Interstate 90. Thomas Greenough's descendants occupied the home until 1964 when the highway department informed Ruth Greenough Mosby and her husband that their home lay in the proposed interstate path. Few wanted to see the landmark destroyed and the Mosbys offered the mansion to the city if the city would pay moving costs. In the end, the price was too high for the city budget. Mosby decided to pay for the move himself and relocate the mansion in his Leisure Highlands development in the south hills of Missoula. An immediate problem surfaced. At three-stories and 287 tons, the mansion was too large to move across any of the bridges over the Clark Fork River which lay between the original and proposed locations. Despite this difficulty the Spokane, Washington firm of Catlow Movers took on the challenge of the move. On May 22, 1965 Catlow moved the house a distance of 1-2 blocks to the intersection of Vine Street and Van Buren. On May 26 the house was moved 2-3 blocks to the south end of Van Buren Street on the banks of the Clark Fork River. Catlow planned to wait for low water before building a bridge. That plan was never completed possibly due to Catlow's financial problems or perhaps the sheer difficulty of move.

The mansion sat for over a year and suffered serious fire damage to the interior. In the spring of 1966 another contractor, Reuben Will of Dickinson, North Dakota, took over the project. His firm removed the gables and cut the mansion into three pieces to meet the weight limits of an existing Missoula bridge. The actual move of the first major section took place on August 8, 1966 and the entire move was completed that month. The Greenough Mansion, relocated, reassembled, and refurbished, housed a variety of commercial endeavors until it burned down in June 1992.