40 North Benton Avenue

A square shape, low-pitched roof, wide bracketed eaves, and heavy window crowns suggest that this Italianate style apartment building may date to the late 1870s. Attorney George Bleecker, Mrs. Sarah Martin, and bookkeeper John Street, the first documented residents, lived here in 1890. By 1892, historic maps reveal a change from family housing to “furnished rooms.

” Mrs. Delia Hooker, boardinghouse keeper in 1900, employed a servant and a Chinese cook who saw to the needs of her seven lodgers. In 1910, occupants included two primary households and four “roomers.” Lois Hepperdiezel owned the building by 1920. Her five tenants included three schoolteachers, a stenographer, and a solicitor.

A second-story porch, removed by 1892, once spanned the front but the interior configuration appears little changed. Like many of Helena’s early brick buildings, this one received its stucco after earthquakes caused widespread local damage in 1935. As a fine, early example of Italianate architecture in Helena modified to reflect the 1935 disaster, this landmark building is a significant element of the historic West Side neighborhood.