Conrad Mansion

Charles Conrad came up the Missouri to Fort Benton in 1868, at eighteen, and with his brother William made a fortune in freighting, trade and banking. Hunting trips into the Flathead, which he called his Valley of Paradise, and his friendship with James J. Hill, whose Great Northern was building west, drew him here. He was among the first directors of the Kalispell Townsite Company in 1890 and drew up the town's first layout, and in 1895 he moved his family into a twenty-three-room house by Kirtland Cutter, the Spokane architect who later designed Lake McDonald Lodge: shingle and native stone, four stone chimneys for eight fireplaces, stained glass, and a sprinkler system built in from the start. Conrad died in the house in 1902, and his widow kept it full of guests until her own death there.

Their youngest daughter, also named Alicia, stayed on until 1964, when she could no longer pay to heat it and moved into a trailer on the grounds. In 1973 she and the family offered the house to the city. In March 1974 Kalispell's voters turned down a referendum to take it on with public money, 1,325 to 860. That December the city accepted it anyway as a gift, on the understanding that it would pay its own way, and it has run as a museum ever since.

Because she kept nearly everything, most of the furnishings in the house are the family's own. Guided tours run in season, and in October the guides tell its ghost stories.