BILLINGS AND THE BIG OPEN - Montana and Wyoming - page 43

www.mttotaltransportation.com ) offers customized and lighthearted tours of Billings's his-
toric district; the Christmas Light Tour is a winner.
MM Yellowstone Art Museum
The Yellowstone Art Museum (401 N. 27th St., 406/256-6804, www.artmuseum.org ,
10am-5pm Mon.-Wed. and Fri.-Sat., 10am-8pm Thurs., noon-5pm Sun. Memorial Day-
Labor Day, 10am-5pm Tues.-Wed. and Sat., 10am-8pm Thurs.-Fri., 11am-4pm Sun. Labor
Day-Memorial Day, $6 adults, $3 children 6-18 and students, $12 family, free for children
under 6) is an important visual arts center for Montana. The Montana Collection is an im-
pressive array of more than 2,000 works by the state's most lauded contemporary artists,
including Russell Chatham, Freeman Butts, Deborah Butterfield, and Theodore Waddell.
The museum also houses a significant number of works by Will James and early Montana
modernist Isabelle Johnson. The Visible Vault gives visitors a glimpse of how and where
the museum stores their 7,300-object permanent collection.
Moss Mansion
For 87 years the family of fabulously successful entrepreneur Preston Boyd Moss lived
happily in Billings's Moss Mansion (914 Division St., 406/256-5100,
www.mossmansion.com , tours 10am-3pm Tues.-Sat., 1pm-3pm Sun. summer, 1pm-3pm
Tues.-Sun. fall-spring, $10 adults, $7 seniors and military, $6 children 6-17. The 1903
home, designed by New York architect Henry Janeway Hardenbergh, who also designed
New York City's original Waldorf Astoria and Plaza Hotels, was lovingly maintained by the
family and turned into a museum. It can only be seen on the one-hour tours, which offer a
fascinating glimpse into the Moss family's elegant lifestyle. Much of the original furnish-
ings and art decorate the mansion today. Winter holiday tours are a special treat, when the
mansion is decorated for Christmas.