Through the 1870’s and 1880’s, the I.G. Baker Company was Montana’s largest mercantile enterprise. When the company began, in 1865-1866, Baker and his brother had only a log store along the levee. When Baker’s wife joined him in Fort Benton in 1867, and he constructed this home, a two room adobe with a sod roof. It was here that Montana Territory’s acting governor Thomas F. Meagher ate his last meal before his mysterious drowning in 1867.