SigMT

SiG MT 37 SiG MT 35 isiting the Wendt Agency offices, in the old Great Falls Ice and Fuel Company warehouse on Park Drive, is in some ways a step back in time. In the early 20th century, the Suhr Building stored ice, before modern refrigeration was invented. High ceilings, exposed red brick walls, oversized doors, and much of the original hardwood flooring remain. Yet, the old ice house has a decidedly different feel today; open offices, a glassed-in meeting room, scaered seating areas, and breakrooms suggest a company that's kept pace with the times. V Bird & Wendt Advertising was started 90 years ago by R .M. Bird and L.W. "Wally" Wendt, just months before the Great Depression. e Great Falls Tribune announced the new company: "e agency will plan and prepare every type of printed advertising, including newspaper, magazine, booklets, circulars, broadside leers, and special publicity campaigns." Wendt, the Tribune's advertising manager, worked with the "larger advertising agencies of the nation" to learn about merchandising, said the paper. When Bird le the firm later that year, Wendt continued growing Montana's first ad agency. Print ads from the 1930s for Eddy's bread—sliced bread, a novelty at the time—adorn the common areas along with hand- drawn promotions for Sapphire Flour. A 1940s Montana Highway Department ad promoted Glacier and Yellowstone parks, dude ranches, and rodeos, with a headline proclaiming, "ere's room to stretch in Majestic Montana." In the 1950s, Wendt ads for Great Falls Select beer touted it as a reward for the man who mows the lawn: "e perfect follow-through…lawn mower to can opener." An original door from the old Great Falls ice house, circa 1910, adds a vintage feel at Montana's oldest advertising agency. In the 1950s, graphic artists incorporated photography in their work, as in the Great Falls Breweries ad. Print ads from the 1930s and 1940s were hand drawn and composed by physically cutting and pasting lines of type and design elements.

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