Kirkemo, H. E. (Henry Elmer), 1894-1987

Albert John Gibson was born in 1862 in Savannah, Ohio. He moved to Butte, Montana, when he was twenty-one and worked there for five years. In 1888, he arrived in Missoula, Montana, and worked with E.C. Selander as a carpenter. He later formed a partnership with Robert Mentrum and began to study architecture, for which he exhibited a natural genius. Gibson designed St. Patrick's Hospital, Missoula City-County High School, the Missoula County Courthouse, Sacred Heart Academy, most of the early University of Montana buildings, the Greenough Mansion, the Ravalli County Courthouse, and many other buildings in Montana and Idaho.

Although he officially retired in 1909, Gibson remained involved in the projects of his protégé, Ole Bakke. In the 1910s, while Gibson actively pursued his interest in long-distance automobile touring, Bakke continued the Gibson architectural tradition in Western Montana and Idaho, designing numerous public and private buildings.

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