Historic Downtown Billings

MINNESOTA AVENUE CORRIDOR 1882-1920
Cigars and Saloons, Chinese Business District, Warehouses and Houses of Ill Repute

The Minnesota Avenue Corridor was one of the first developed areas in Billings and still contains some of the city's oldest remaining buildings. After finishing the Northern Pacific's headquarters building, Heman Clark completed Billings' second building, a mercantile supply house, at the corner of Minnesota Avenue and 29th Street in 1882. From there, Minnesota Avenue developed rapidly in the first few decades of Billings and included a variety of businesses by 1900. "Social clubs" and "sporting houses" flourished near the rail yards and early maps of Billings unabashedly labeled a solid lineup of "female boarding houses" along a 2½-block stretch of Minnesota Avenue. Between 1905 and 1910 there were six Billings shops making cigars to ensure a steady supply to area saloons. Three of these shops were on Minnesota Avenue. Minnesota Avenue east of 27th was the heart of the Chinese Business district in the early 1900s. Restaurants were among the small businesses that Chinese immigrants commonly operated in the neighborhood. By the 1920s, many of the small businesses along Minnesota Avenue had become vacant, but the demand for warehousing swelled at this time as local agricultural production intensified and population increased.

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