A photograph taken at the corner of Fuller Avenue and Lawrence Street in December 1960 shows the Kohrs Block freshly clad in the era's signature commercial makeover — metal screening and stone veneer applied over the building's original facade in what passed for modernization at the time. The image, shared courtesy of Becky Schupp, captures Helena mid-transformation, caught between its Victorian bones and the postwar impulse to look new.
The metal screen that once covered the Kohrs Block's upper windows has since been removed, restoring at least a partial view of what was underneath. The building's history as part of Helena's commercial corridor puts it in the company of dozens of Last Chance Gulch properties that survived the urban renewal era in various states of alteration — some stripped of their historic character, others eventually restored.
Photographs like this one serve as a useful record of how much Helena's built environment has shifted over six decades, and how much of what felt modern in 1960 has itself become history.