812 South Third Avenue

There were few houses in the neighborhood when Civil War veteran Edward Cornelius Kinney moved into this home circa 1906. Kinney, a civil engineer of some renown, was educated at Oberlin College in his Ohio hometown. As assistant chief engineer for the Union Pacific Railroad, Kinney oversaw the difficult preliminary surveys across Montana.

He once mustered 300 men to guard the Jefferson canyon from rival Northern Pacific surveyors. Kinney eventually settled in Bozeman where he was construction manager of the West Gallatin Irrigation Company. The Kinneys lived here with four of their six grown children and a granddaughter. The child’s widowed mother, Mabel Kinney Hall, was a highly educated professor of public speaking and modern languages at the nearby Montana Agricultural College (now MSU).

Another Kinney daughter was librarian at the public library; their only son, like his father, was a civil engineer for the Union Pacific. The home’s comparatively modest design reflects the transition from complex Victorian-era flamboyance. Leaded glass windows, an offset gabled entry, and a double-bay façade complement the straightforward square plan and open front porch.