DEER LODGE — Once the center of opulence and class, the Deer Lodge Hotel is now just a shell of its former glory, but some in this small town would like to see the historic building brought to new life.
“It’s in the heart of Deer Lodge. It’s right in the middle, Main Street, the community needs something like this. It will literally revitalize the entire town,” said building owner Kip Kimerly.
A community meeting was recently held to get feedback from the public about the future of the building which has been vacant for about 40 years and has fallen into severe disrepair.
“It’s important for our economy, it’s important for the beauty of our Main Street, but we just want our social space back. We want it to be a value to the community again,” said Powell County Planning Director Amanda Cooley.
Built in 1912, the three-story building was the first steel-frame building in the state. Some residents remember when the hotel was still thriving.
“I’d go in there as a kid and deliver newspapers. We had our local sporting goods store there,” said Tim Hanifen.
Officials with the Department of Environmental Quality and environmental engineers from Montana Tech were at the meeting to inform the public about efforts to get a $4 million federal grant to clean out asbestos in the building.
“You got to be clean, it has to be structurally sound, people have to be safe going into that facility or you can’t move forward,” said Montana Tech Environmental Engineering Director Robin Bullock.
The owner of the hotel estimates it could take $10 million to fully restore the building.
Some Deer Lodge residents are skeptical.
“I don’t think we can afford to spend a ton of money on something that’s seen it’s day. We need to do something. We need to take it down and make a park out of it or a parking lot or something, we can’t just leave it sit there forever,” said Deer Lodge resident Gary Chilcott.
Hanifen added, “We would love to see it repaired and live again, but realistically it’s going to take a lot of money from outside of our little community to make this happen.”
Kimerly is optimistic it can be done because Deer Lodge has restored damaged buildings before.
“What they did for the Rialto Theater is something that could be done and times ten, because it’s a lot more opulent building,” said Kimerly.
