Bozeman was a very different place 100 years ago. Imagine living in the Tinsley House at the Museum of the Rockies. (By the way, visiting this Living History Farm is free all summer!) The gold rush that brought so many people through the Gallatin Valley on the Bozeman Trail was over, and those people were settling in to new lives on Montana’s open land. The town of Bozeman was established in 1864, and by the early 1900s, its population had grown to more than 3,000 people. Montana Agricultural College had started offering classes, and the Northern Pacific Railroad provided an artery to the outside world.

Several businesses became established near the railroad tracks, including the Bozeman Canning Company in 1917. More than 200 people spent their days canning peas in the four-story building still standing near the corner of Rouse Avenue and Oak Street. Thousands of cases of peas were packaged there for decades, until the early 1960s when the last owner closed up shop.

The towering cannery building, warehouse and other outbuildings then housed various industrial companies or sat empty for quite some time. The most recent occupants, Revelation Industries, built electrical circuits and lighting, some of which are installed in New York City’s Times Square. When Revelation’s owners decided to move on, they sold the cannery building and surrounding 8.5 acres to Barry Brown and Scott Dehlendorf.

Learn more and read the full article in Bozeman Magazine.