Rancher and banker, Charles Krug, came west from Ohio in 1878, searching for opportunity and a climate to relieve his sister Emma’s asthma. In 1881, he and Emma settled in Glendive where she was a seamstress, and he worked for the railroad. Krug built a herd of five hundred cattle, adding one or two head every payday. After the winter of 1886-87 killed nearly all his livestock, he started over, and eventually acquired 34,000 acres of land, 25,000 sheep, and 1,000 head of cattle.

In 1900, at the age of fifty-five, Krug married Annie Ketcham, mother of two young daughters. Together they had five more children. In 1906, St. architect Herbert Chivers built this twenty-five room Neoclassical style home for the Krug family. Constructed of glazed Hebron brick, expertly laid by Michigan masons, Chivers’ own artisans crafted the elaborate details. The interior was finished in quarter sawn oak with elaborate stairways, porcelain-tiled fireplaces, and beautifully carved columns.

In the economically disastrous 1920’s, when many rural banks were ruined by customers’ panic-driven withdrawals, Krug was president of the Merchant’s National Bank. He and Exchange Bank president, Henry Dion, agreed to help each other through the hard times. Krug, known as a man of his word, prevented a run on his bank when he vowed publicly to use every penny he had to keep his bank solvent, even if that meant leaving town as broke as when he first arrived. All four Glendive banks survived.