About: Then and Now
THE DANFORTH’S HISTORY:
A SIGNIFICANT PART OF LIVINGSTON’S STORY
The Danforth Block
Completed in 1890, the Danforth Block is best described as a two-part commercial block with Romanesque Revival stylist influences. It is situated along Livingston’s most intact (and therefore significant) historic commercial streetscape. The original buildings on this lot, a pair of slender, one-story, frame structures, housed a cigar factory and a shooting gallery in 1884. After fire destroyed the buildings in 1886, owner J. A. Danforth, the lot’s absentee landowner, quickly commissioned a replacement in the form of a one-story brick block. Four years later, he added a second story to his namesake building, but the addition was so heavy it damaged the first floor. In 1891, he remodeled, adding iron support columns to carry the weight.
The façade’s ground floor storefront is almost entirely of glass, indicating its intended public use. In contrast, the upper zone is defined by heavy masonry construction with four, evenly-spaced windows puncturing the wall surface.
Stylistically, the heavily corbeled parapet of the Danforth Block reflects the ornate aesthetics of the Victorian Era’s gilded age. The distinctive cornice line successfully evokes a medieval fortress with heavy overlapping corbels and a distinctive brick parapet.
For much of the building’s history, the second floor housed club and card rooms while a saloon filled the first floor. Bar owners included Democratic political “boss” John Hogan, who came to Livingston as a Northern Pacific “road master” and then went into sheep ranching. Hogan purchased the building in 1914, and his ghost sign still marks the north façade’s second story. In 1927, during Prohibition, Herman Bauer, a union activist blackballed by the railroad as an “agitator,” opened a soft drink parlor. Antlers Bar opened in 1937, four years after Prohibition’s repeal. It operated until 1967.
The Danforth Gallery
The Danforth Gallery opened in 1974 and operated as a non-profit organization overseen by Park County Friends of the Arts (PCFA). The building was generously donated to PCFA by John and Diane Stillman. As one of Livingston’s original art galleries, the Danforth helped lay the foundation for the city as a Montana art center. For over 40 years, the Danforth Gallery operated as a premier space focused on showcasing and selling a variety of contemporary art.
Once inaugurated, the Danforth quickly became a mainstay for painters, sculptors, and ceramic artists to exhibit their work. By the early 1980s, the Danforth had earned the reputation for being “the central place” in Livingston to experience the greater world of art, as well as functioning as a launching pad for a number of artists’ professional careers. The scene at the Danforth began attracting more than just visual artists. Various musicians, writers, and performers also gathered at the Danforth, and the gallery hosted performance art events, poetry readings, lectures, film series, and music, often to sell-out, standing-room-only crowds.
PCFA went on to produce what became the regionally famous Main Street Show for over 20 years. The Main Street Show was a venue in which first time performers could cut their teeth next to seasoned veterans and drop-in guest stars, and local audiences were treated to songs, stories, and comedy all within the gallery’s artistic surroundings.
The Danforth Gallery closed its doors in 2016.
The Danforth Museum of Art
The Danforth Museum of Art (DMA) will be the first art museum in Park County, Montana. Aware that a meaningful body of the region’s art, which in no small part was sold through the Danforth Gallery, is currently housed in private collections scattered across the county, the DMA will be the community venue where the artistic heritage of the region will be publicly recognized, displayed, and preserved.
In addition to establishing a permanent collection of local and regional artists whose works date from the 1960’s through the present, the museum will host engaging and educational exhibitions and events for the community as well as professional resources for working artists. True to its trailblazing nature, the DMA will do more than just catalog and house art. By revitalizing itself as a host of contemporary exhibitions in a renovated, fresh space, the Danforth will provide innovative and inclusive educational resources and programs to serve both working artists and the community at large.
In 2019, the Danforth was registered on the Montana National Register of Historic Places. Envisioned as a rich community resource connecting the past and future of Livingston, the DMA anticipates a restoration and renovation of the historic Danforth Block in the not-too-distant future. Moreover, the DMA recognizes the region’s pre-colonial past and honors the Indigenous Peoples—past, present and future—upon whose ancestral homelands the museum now stands <land acknowledgment>.