Gust D. Forssen – Dynamic Missoula Builder – Wilma Bldg. & Many Others
Gust D. Forssen – Solid as His Buildings by Al Darr
Missoula would somehow have grown up without Gust Forssen. He was no Paul Bunyan, just a Swedish immigrant who had a flair for building and a persistent will to work 12 hours a day or more in all kinds of weather.
The result was Missoula, or such a substantial part of Missoula that without Gust Forssen’s buildings the town would look like a target area in post-war Germany, after the cleanup but before reconstruction.
A man can stand today on the roof of the Wilma Building (a Forssen project) and view Forssen’s professional career clear around the compass.
Gustav David Forssen was 79 when he died a little more than two years ago.
His legacy included five decades of strong construction, not only in Missoula but throughout the Northwest. Gust was fond of saying in later years that he came from a province in Sweden whose residents could make a living on a rock in the middle of the ocean.
Forssen was making a living on the Palace Hotel construction job in early June [1908], when every bridge across the Clark Fork River went out. He made his way home to South Second Street that night on a Northern Pacific rail left hanging above the flood.
Just 10 days later, he and Anna Larson were married, and he never forgot their anniversary.
Traumatic events fairly dogged young Forssen’s early years abuilding.
He was superintendent for Olsen and Johnson Contractors in 1910, at work on the stately Milwaukee Depot, when forest fires raged out of control throughout the region. He and his men sometimes had to quit work early because dense smoke obscured the riverfront.
The post-WW I Wilma Building barely got off the ground before Forssen (in business for himself since 1916) was asked to take over the half a million dollar contract. The original builders couldn’t swing it financially.
Skyscrapers were far out in that era, although Forssen already had the Cowell and Dixon Block (Western Montana Bank Building) to his credit as well as the original Palace Hotel.
To accomplish the Wilma Building, however, Forssen had to sink deep footings into the bed of the Clark Fork River, dam the north channel and keep a battery of pumps going while the concrete set.
Experience led him to modify the architect’s plans as he went along, to reinforce the main beam over the front entrance and provide a reinforced concrete beam to support the theater balcony.
More than 40 years have now elapsed since the Wilma Building took shape, and neither floods nor high winds nor the pummeling of feet by the thousands have shaken the lofty landmark.
Forssen’s first major contract on his own was the Natural Science Building on the University of Montana campus (1917). He bought his first car that year, a necessity rather than a status symbol. He previously rode a bicycle.
Other Forssen projects on the UM campus were the library (for Olsen and Johnson), the forestry building and the heating plant.
He also contracted Franklin, Paxson, Whittier and Willard schools, the present Missoulian-Sentinel Building, and Westmont Tractor Building on Spruce Street, the two main H. O. Bell Co. buildings, the Firestone Store, State Highway Department Building on West Broadway, now occupied by the city street and sewer departments; plus 20 or 30 houses to keep the crew busy between major jobs.
Out-of-town jobs included the Washoe Theater and the junior high school in Anaconda, the water filtration plant in Great Falls, the Indian confederation bathhouse in Hot Springs, schools in Arlee, St. Ignatius and St. Regis; the Hill County courthouse in Havre, the state hospital in Pendleton, Ore.; Strathcona Hospital in Edmonton, the Shoshone County Hospital in Wallace, Idaho.
Glasgow High School was a painful job in 1928. Forssen was personally supervising the installation of a steel roof truss when the hoist cable broke. He went down with the scaffolding, and his leg and pelvic bone were broken in 11 places by the falling truss.
The country doctor in Glasgow did his best, mending and patching for several months before he gave up and sent Gust to Minneapolis. The young Missoula builder came up on both feet, but his left leg was an inch shorter than his right and weighed down with metal plates where the bone ends wouldn’t quite fit.
Forssen was a labor man’s labor man, a member of Local 28, United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners, for more than 50 years. But he had a feeling about integrity and personal performance on the job, extra rewards for exceptional work, and he drew a bit of fire for his graduated pay scale in later years.
In his four or five-year introduction to American life after 1902, Forssen worked cotton in Texas, felled trees in Washington with his brother Arvid and mined silver in Idaho.
He was a music lover (clarinet, harmonica and a bit of concertina), an amateur artist and an insatiable collector. He knew stamps and coins almost as well as he knew I-beams and joists.
On top of all this, the Missoula Chamber of Commerce leaned heavily on Gust Forssen. His Scandinavian conservatism stamped him indelibly as a doer, not a talker or a spender.
Whatever life dealt him for his pains, Gust was fond of saying, “It’s better than a kick in the pants.”
The above article appeared in The Sunday Missoulian on January 30, 1966.
A photograph of Gust Forssen appeared with the above article. The caption read the following:
“Gust D. Forssen, seen above in his collector’s wonderland of a basement, raised up a significant portion of Missoula, first as a superintendent for Olsen and Johnson, later on his own. Below is the 1917 Science Hall at the University of Montana, located just north of Main Hall. It was Forssen’s first major contract on his own. At right below, the bridge was not Forssen’s forte, but he executed the Vine Street Bridge over the Rattlesnake for Olsen and Johnson.”
https://www.newspapers.com/image/349825211/?terms=forssen
Gust Forssen died in Missoula in January of 1964. His obituary from the Missoulian-Sentinel of January 18, 1964, appears below:
Gustav David Forssen, 79, 2545 Queen St., retired building contractor and Missoula resident for more than half a century, died unexpectedly Friday at Vancouver, Wash.
He was visiting at the home of a daughter, Mrs. Sam Smith.
He was born Dec. 17, 1884, in Jonkoping, Sweden. He attended high school and trade school in Sweden and came to the U.S. in 1902. He worked in the cotton fields of Texas and the logging camps of western Washington until 1904 when he moved to Wallace, Idaho, and became a miner.
Mr. Forssen returned to the carpentry trade in Wallace, moving shortly thereafter to Missoula. On June 16, 1908, he married Anna Larson and they made their home here until her death Aug. 31, 1963, on her 79th birthday.
He worked as a carpenter and building superintendent until 1917 when he went into business for himself as a building contractor.
Mr. Forssen built many buildings throughout Montana. In Missoula he was superintendent or prime contractor on a number of structures including the Wilma building, Western Bank building, Palace Hotel, four public grade schools and three major buildings on the University campus.
He was an elder in the First Presbyterian Church and had served the church in other offices. He was a member for more than 50 years of Local 28, United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America; was a past director of the Chamber of Commerce and headed membership campaigns for several years.
He served several terms as a member of the Western Montana Council, Boy Scouts of America. He belonged to Masonic organizations, including Knights Templar and served for 10 years as a member of the board of directors of the Masonic Temple Corp.
He had been making his home with a son, John, in Missoula, and for several weeks had been visiting another son, Carl of Seattle, and the daughter in Vancouver.
He is also survived by nine grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.”
https://www.newspapers.com/image/349220118
Mrs. Gust D. Forssen died in August of 1963. Her obituary, from The Sunday Missoulian on September 1, 1963, appears below:
Mrs. Gust D. Forssen, 401 Brooks St., died in a local hospital early Saturday on her seventy-ninth birthday. Sher had been recovering satisfactorily from a cataract operation when stricken unexpectedly by a heart attack.
The funeral will be at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday in the Squire, Simmons & Carr Rose Chapel, and burial will be in Missoula Cemetery. The Rev. Richard A. Jones will officiate. The family asks that tributes be in the form of memorials to the First Presbyterian Church.
Mrs. Forssen, whose maiden name was Anna Larson, was born Aug. 31, 1884 in Helfingland, Sweden. She attended elementary school and high school in that country.
In 1901 when she was 16, she and as sister, the late Mrs. Frank (Karen) Sandeen, crossed the Atlantic to join a brother, John, in Wallace, Idaho, where he was working in a mine. He and another sister, who came to the United States separately, also have died.
Miss Larson lived in Wallace and Spokane until the spring of 1908 when she moved to Missoula. She and Gust D. Forssen were married June 16 of that year in the Garden City and subsequently resided here continuously except periodically when he had construction projects in other places.
Mr. and Mrs. Forssen celebrated their fifty-fifth wedding anniversary this year.
Survivors besides the widower are two sons, Carl G., Seattle, and John A., Missoula; one daughter, Mrs. Sam S. Smith, Vancouver, Wash., nine grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.