The records → Working timeline
The records behind this history

Working timeline

A stranger’s path through this building. Every date is cited. Gaps are marked NULL, not filled.


Before the house

WhenWhatSource
1864-07-02Congress charters the Northern Pacific and grants odd-numbered sections along the line. Section 29 (this legal) is odd.13 Stat. 365; MNHS NP Land Dept. guide
1870Finding aid: Allen M. Wilkinson “established” the Northern Pacific Addition (stated on a Block 19 abstract, not ours).Archives West MC 421
1871-05Allen Wilkinson purchases 134 acres in Section 29 (Caird CRS writes T11N in this sentence; the same report locates the Addition site in T10N R3W Sec 29 — treat T11N as a likely typo). Property absorbed into the Northern Pacific Addition by 1883.Axline, Caird CRS (24LC2205), 2014, helenahistory.org
1883-06-13Northern Pacific arrives Helena. City has already graded the depot street. Addition platted as the working-class depot suburb (later Sixth Ward).NRHP Depot District form; Caird CRS
1884-01Herald: capital pouring into the Northern Pacific Addition — hotels, saloons, Kirkendall’s warehouse.NRHP form citing Helena Weekly Herald
1888-09-03Union Mercantile Co. files in Montana (D000745). No street. Not this building.Bizapedia / SOS

Patent image for Sec. 29: not pulled. See 02_PATENT.md.


The house is built — first generation, named

WhenWhatSource
1883-06 to 1884-11Year-built window. A stone warehouse is already standing on Block 25 by the November 1884 Sanborn.03_SANBORN.md
1884-11Sanborn Sheet 9: Block 25, Bozeman St. / R.R. Reservation — KLEINSCHMIDT & CO. MDSE WARE HO., blue (stone), 76' × 200', office at SW corner, platform on an N.P. side track. Lots along the track include 1–4. Block 24 is across Bozeman.LOC sanborn05017_001 sheet 9 / Wikimedia PD
1884City directory: Kleinschmidt Bros & Co. store is on Main Street, not Bozeman. The Sanborn warehouse is their rail-side merchandise house. No “1316 Bozeman” line exists yet (addressing of the Addition is young).Staring, Helena directory, 1884, IA GR_3950
189264-sheet Sanborn — Block 25 not yet re-read (continuity check).LOC sanborn05017_004
1922Helena Polk exists online at FamilySearch — Bozeman street index not yet read.FamilySearch 806305
193081-sheet Sanborn — Nash-Finch label not yet read.LOC sanborn05017_005

1935 — the year the papers see this warehouse

WhenWhatSource
1935-04Talk of moving the State Liquor Warehouse out of the old Lindsay Fruit building on Bozeman Street.helenahistory.org
1935-10 (early)Construction starts on the new liquor warehouse (GN yard / Front St.).same
1935-10-18, 9:48 p.m.M 6.2 main shock. Sixth Ward / depot warehouses take it.USGS; Independent 10/19
that nightNash-Finch office: rear torn out; Shope and Roland (employees) run to the street before walls crumble. Christie Transfer warehouse “practically demolished.” Liquor house (neighbor) later described roof-in, wall onto a whisky car.Independent 10/19, 10/20, 10/22
1935-10-19Photograph of the Christie truck in the liquor-house rubble.MTHS PAc 2015-23.19 / mtmemory 89318
1935-10-31City permit: Nash-Finch — rebuild end walls and repair roof of company’s stone warehouse — $900.Independent 10/31
1935-10-31, 11:37 a.m.M 6.0 aftershock.USGS; Independent
1935-11-12“Warehouse district at the Northern Pacific depot… Nash-Finch, A. M. Holter and other warehouses are nearly restored.”Independent 11/12
1936New State Liquor Warehouse opens, Front / Lyndale (DeKay). The neighbor is gone from Bozeman. 1316 is not.helenahistory.org

Address lock for “Nash-Finch = 1316 Bozeman”: Helena As She Was, 29 Aug 2020 (held). The 1935 papers name the company and the stone warehouse; they do not print the house number.


After the quake — Hornes, TIF, close

WhenWhatSource
1937–1948Occupant NULL until Polk is walked.05_DIRECTORIES.md
1949Capital Transfer & Storage founded (Horne grandfather + father).Company / KTVH / Diane
1971 / 1974John Horne full-time; brother follows.same
1995-05-26First online title fact: Dorothy M. Horne + Capital Transfer mortgage the Block 25 lots to Norwest (#533388). They already own it.EagleWeb legal index
1998-05-21Assumed business name A067141 CAPITAL TRANSFER & STORAGE registered (later cancelled).MT SOS
2004-12-15Helena Railroad Depot Historic District listed. 1316 is outside the boundary, same warehouse generation as the last listed stone warehouse (1439 N. Harris) — and older (1884 vs c.1896).NRIS 03001330
2007-11-14Capital Transfer & Storage LLC C176736; agent John L. Horne, 1316 Bozeman.MT SOS (live 2026-08-26)
2007-12-31Deed #3141282, Book M37 p.7167, HORNE DOROTHY M ESTATE → HORNE JOHN L.EagleWeb + iTax 2852
2010-05-26Corrective estate deed #3187170, same parties; Ordinance 1758 referenced.EagleWeb
2018-11-02Horne buys 1315 Bozeman (Block 24) — other parcel.iTax 25120
2020-08-29Local historian names 1316 as the Nash-Finch warehouse in the 1935 photograph caption.Held Word file
2026-07-01Capital Transfer closes. John Horne last family.KTVH
2026Joshua Tree / Diane packet: restore the stone, the mural, the historic face. HPO already in the conversation.Diane JTC application

Cooke Street: tax legal includes 35' CLOSED COOKE ST. EagleWeb mortgages cite Ordinance 1758 (Book 253 p.463 / Book 53 p.463). Image not pulled. Do not mix with downtown North Cooke Street.


One paragraph the board can read aloud

This is a Northern Pacific Addition warehouse on Section 29 — the same odd section a 2014 survey traces to Allen Wilkinson’s 1871 purchase, absorbed into the Addition when the train arrived in 1883. By November 1884 the fire-insurance map already shows a 76-by-200-foot stone merchandise warehouse on Block 25, labeled Kleinschmidt & Co., with a platform on a Northern Pacific side track. Those are the same block and lot numbers as 1316 Bozeman today. In October 1935 it was Nash-Finch’s stone wholesale house, run on the ground by Christie Transfer. The earthquake that wrecked the Sixth Ward tore the office and made the city issue a $900 permit to rebuild the stone end walls and repair the roof. Two weeks later the paper said the Nash-Finch warehouse was nearly restored. The liquor house next door was not. Dorothy Horne / Capital Transfer were on title by May 1995; John Horne took the warehouse from her estate on 31 December 2007. The family ran Capital Transfer from this house until 1 July 2026. The building is in the Railroad TIF, just outside the listed depot district, and older than the last stone warehouse that district was able to list. The one number still owed: a page-by-page 1892 / 1930 Sanborn check that the box you can walk into is the same 76 × 200 box.