Albert John Gibson was born in 1862 in Savannah, Ohio. He moved to Butte, Montana, when he was twenty-one and worked there for five years. In 1888, he arrived in Missoula, Montana, and worked with E. C. Selander as a carpenter. He later formed a partnership with Robert Mentrum and began to study architecture, for which he exhibited a natural genius. He designed St. Patrick’s Hospital, Missoula City-County High School, the Missoula County Courthouse, Sacred Heart Academy, most of the University of Montana, the Greenough Mansion, the Ravalli County Courthouse, and many other buildings in Montana and Idaho, including Wallace, Idaho. In 1909, he retired. In the 1910s, Gibson actively pursued his interest in long-distance automobile touring, including a trip from Missoula to New York City. He was killed in 1928 in an automobile-train accident.
The collection consists of seven individual items, including two scrapbooks. Individual items include a temperance pledge signed by Gibson in 1888; three property tax receipts dated 1840, 1841, and 1861 from Mahoning County, Ohio, and Columbiana County, Ohio; and a 1908 letter to Gibson “From a Court House Friend” that threatens him with tar and feathers if he does not “refuse to accept the proposition.” The two scrapbooks, the pages of one of which have been removed from their original book, contain newspaper clippings, programs, and other publications, including Gibson’s business advertisement brochure. Most relate to Gibson’s architectural career, including accounts of building dedications, pictures, and summaries of his contribution to the built environment of Missoula. Many others, however, relate to Gibson’s interests and personal life, including clippings of his own published accounts of his automobile tours. There are significant materials on the University of Montana campus, downtown buildings, and the First Presbyterian Church of Missoula.
Researchers must use collection in accordance with the policies of Archives and Special Collections, the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Library, and the University of Montana--Missoula.
Researchers are responsible for using in accordance with 17 U.S.C. and any other applicable statutes. Copyright not transferred to the University of Montana.
[Name of document or photograph number], A. J. Gibson Collection, Archives and Special Collections, The University of Montana-Missoula.
The provenance is unknown, although the collection appears to have been part of the Montana vertical file in the library’s Montana collection.
The actions of the original processors are unknown; the collection was numbered SC 5. In 1998, the collection was re-described and re-numbered as Mss 018. In 2004, the finding aid was encoded.
The Historical Museum at Ft. Missoula holds a collection of Gibson photograph albums. The K. Ross Toole Archives at The University of Montana holds a collection of Gibson architectural drawings (Mss 020).
This collection is indexed under the following headings in the online catalog. Researchers desiring materials about related topics, persons, or places should search the catalog using these headings.