There was just something about this that made me drive around the block and get out of the car to take a picture. It just seems so unapologetic in it’s sense of purpose. And for the fan of streamline moderne, a classic look.
Greyhound Bus Station, Billings
Submitted by Markydoodle
September 20th, 2010
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Allee Willis
My first instinct when I looked at the photo was that it was a gorgeous building but I wasn’t 100% sure that it was original because certain aspects of it, like the windows and tiles, looked newer. There is always a few of these kinds of buildings around, ones that emulate Deco style but then the dead giveaway that it’s newer is the materials used to finish it. Fortunately, this building is the best of both worlds as far as I can tell from this bit of background that I found online:
This Billings station was designed by J.G. Link, a local Billings architect. It was built around 1946 and is still used as a Greyhound station. It had a restaurant inside the terminal and an enclosed bus loading area (unusual in the U.S. but not in Canada). The building originally had terra cotta tiles on the exterior which did not hold up to Montana’s extreme weather (they began leaking). These tiles were removed in the mid-1950s and replaced with stucco and gravel. In a recent renovation, this stucco was removed and new tile installed, based on the original design. At the same time, the interior was renovated in a style sensitive to the original.
Mark Milligan
I saw a representation of it online on a postcard web site that looked like it had tiles, but not gray, so I wasn’t sure what had happened!
Nessa
Here’s a similar station in Huntington, WV:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nessachan/407474435/
Allee Willis
That Greyhound station in WV is beautiful. I live in a Streamline Moderne house and am so happy when i see these buildings preserved. This one looks like streamlined transportation and such an incredible use of a corner.
Nessa
Thank you! They’ve done a good job of keeping this place up.
Mark Milligan
It makes me wonder how many they built like that!
Nessa
I know of at least one other similar one (if I remember correctly, somewhere in Illinois?), so I assume there were many. =)