Bruyer Granary Historic District

Julius and Susanna (Birgin) Bruyer sold their successful farm in Vermillion, South Dakota, and moved to the Flathead Valley in 1901. There Julius purchased 280 acres of partly improved property for $14,000. The couple raised six children: Phillip, Lawrence, Elmer, Nicholas, Elizabeth, and Benjamin.

With the help of his sons, Julius harvested and milled the timber for this granary, constructed in 1909 by stacking overlapping two-by-fours (a technique called cribbing). Milled trim work and wide boxed eaves added elegance to the functional building. Julius copied the design for the 11,000-bushel granary from the commercial-scale grain elevators that once stood at almost every railroad siding.

Loaded wagons entered the granary through large sliding doors. After the driver unhitched the horses, the front of the wagon was lifted, using a hand-crank, to dump the grain into a pit. From there, the bucket elevator lifted the grain in metal buckets to the building's distinctive cupola, or headhouse.

The MT NATIONAL REGISTER SIGN TEXT 1990 TO APRIL 2019 buckets emptied into the distributor, which funneled the grain through long spouts into storage bins. Nicholas established the Kal-Mont Dairy in 1928, and the building remained in use until the late 1970s, when the dairy closed. George and Anna (Hummel) Schulze purchased the property in 1950, when they moved from Minnesota with their sons Gerald, George, and Roger.

In 2004, the Schulze family agreed to donate the land on which the granary sits to the City of Kalispell. Carl Naumann and Ellen (Bruyer) Naumann, granddaughter, restored the building, a testament to the valley's agricultural heritage.