Since June 15, 1902

A historic Montana hotel that never closed its doors

The Kempton opened in Terry in the summer of 1902, when the town was a young ranching and railroad stop on the Yellowstone. It has been taking in travellers ever since.

An early black-and-white photograph of the Kempton Hotel, a two-storey frame building with a long porch and its name on the roof — The Kempton in an early photograph

The count so far

Days in continuous operation

45,393

Counted from opening day, June 15, 1902, to today. The number goes up by one every night the lights are on, which has been every night.

From the register

More than a century on Spring Street

June 15, 1902
The doors open
The Kempton Hotel opens in Terry, Montana. The early photograph above shows a long two-storey frame building with a deep front porch and the hotel’s name across the roof.
1951
A new tradition down the road
Twenty minutes west, Miles City holds its first Bucking Horse Sale. By then the Kempton has been open for 49 years.
[YEAR]
[HISTORY: early owners and turning points, from the hotel’s own records]
Today
Still open, still full of the past
Some rooms now have remodelled bathrooms; others keep the shared bath down the hall. There’s a bed and furniture from the late 1880s in room 31, Northern Pacific Railroad posters from the 1920s and 1930s in room 28, and 1930s furniture in the Hunters’ room. Frances Henry Books and Wagon Wheel Antiques are both inside the hotel.

Inside

The lobby is part hotel, part museum

Saddles sit on the stair rail. Paintings of horses and horsemen fill the walls, and the upstairs hallway is hung frame to frame. You walk past all of it on the way to bed.