A History of 220 South 27th Street

• 1882: President Grover Cleveland signs ownership of the land from the United States of America over to the Northern Pacific Railroad Company.
  
• 1883: Minnesota and Montana Land and Improvement Company, of which Frederick Billings was a founder, bought the land for $40,000.
  
• 1890s: Property passed hands between six individuals.
  
• 1929: Yellowstone County sold the land for $40.29 in delinquent taxes.
  
• 1940: Yellowstone County tried to sell the land again, but nobody bid at the auction.
  
• 1941: The property wound up in a lawsuit over a bankruptcy and ownership dispute. Three couples, Bert and Dorothy Reiner, L.I. and Lucy Taylor and Fred and Georgia Briggs won the fight and built the food bank in 1944.
  
• 1963: George A. Lambrecht and his wife, Esther, bought the property. The butcher and his wife raised nine children in the family grocery and meat locker, which they ran for 34 years. Their original mortgage was monthly payments of $174.17 at 7 percent interest.
  
• Dec. 30, 2003: Northern Plains Resource Council and Western Organization of Resource Councils buys the property and launches plans to remodel the building into a model of energy efficiency.
  
• May 20, 2006: The staff of Northern Plains and WORC move into the new building, christened their “Home on the Range”.
  

Thanks to Jan Falstad at the Billings Gazette for this timeline.