Billings Montana
Buffalo Block Prime Steakhouse
Spirit people are pleased with the renovated building!
Attitudes expressed in actions are varied.
The Rex was “Party City”, mob-style!
Some joker of rough character was killed for bad behavior.
DESCRIPTION
“A Woodfire, Old West, Classic Steakhouse Kind Of Experience At Buffalo Block.” (Buffalo Block website)
The three-story Rex building is made of buff-colored brick and red sandstone, done in the Italianate, Beaux Arts style. The upscale, Buffalo Block Prime Steakhouse and its impressive bar and lounge are located on the first floor, in the same space where the informal Rex Steak Seafood Restaurant served delicious fare for thirty plus years.
The new owners, the Larson Family, explained how they felt when The Rex Restaurant closed. 
“Well, we couldn’t just let our favorite steakhouse slip away! What we thought would be some quick updates, ended up a complete internal remodel. New venting, a completely new floor plan, and brand new decor — honoring our past and embracing our future.”
Gone is the informal decor and in its place is the renovated style of the old west, with beautiful woodwork, classy floor upgrades, oriental rugs, high-class wooden and stuffed chairs, and a fancy wooden bar that altogether really recreates an eating and drinking place for the upper class of any era. Especially elegant is the new dining High Bar.
It is the kind of place where people go for special occasions. Serving staff wear formal attire, and service is stellar. To combat sticker shock, the Buffalo Block periodically offers specials, gift certificates and coupons for 40 percent off, to draw in less wealthy folks.
The newer addition in the front, built in 2006, offers a lovely, award-winning outside patio eating area, perfect to have a drink with friends, made complete with an outdoor fireplace.
The second floor was turned into grand banquet and meeting rooms which can be used for social and business events with oriental rugs, and other fine decor. The banquet rooms have long wooden tables while other regular-sized rooms have tables for four to six, covering any social event.
Website Description of Second Floor
“Our intricately designed Board Room sits on the second floor of the Buffalo Block restaurant overlooking Montana Avenue. This unique space features a custom made executive board table, a compatible mirrored smart TV, a back counter for service or presentations, and oversized luxury seating.”
“This room is perfect for off campus planning sessions, private dining experiences, work retreats or an extension to our Ballroom for elevated service selections. Off menu banquet style options available for meetings upon request. Let us take care of the details so you can sit back and enjoy.”
The Ballroom
“Our newly remodeled Ballroom was designed with you in mind. We created an open concept room that offers different setup configurations allowing us to create a space that our guests desire. This room is perfect for parties under 50 guests who are looking for a private dining experience with the elevated service that Buffalo Block has to offer. Reach out to us today to see if we can help create your perfect event.”
The third floor is probably still office space that is rented out to local businesses, which brings in needed funds.
The spirits also must love and appreciate the new upscale look and care that has been put into giving the building a major facelift into an upscale place to eat, drink and celebrate.
One thrilled customer reported, ”It is the highest caliber restaurant I’ve ever seen in about 50 years in Billings. Service was impeccable, all the details were thought through, and the food was memorable. For example, the ‘house salad’ was a unique delicious rich salad with hazelnuts, beets, and two slices of delicate fried cheese. My salmon was grilled perfectly, lightly seasoned, laid atop asparagus and garnished with beurre blanc sauce.”
HISTORY
Chef Alfred Heimer had a long career working for Buffalo Bill Cody, cooking for the Wild West Show. The day came when Heimer retired to Billings, Montana, with a dream of opening up his own hotel and little restaurant, with Bill Cody’s financial help.
With its convenient location just across the railroad station, and the fantastic meals and upscale lodgings, it did a thriving business. In fact, a third floor was added to accommodate the prolific demand from its guests, as it offered rooms for the average man of means, to more well-endowed wealthy people, such as successful businessmen, ranchers, and celebrity western icons of the day: Will James, Calamity Jane and Buffalo Bill.
By 1919, The Rex Hotel, and The Rex Corral Cafe Restaurant and Bar were high class, popular establishments that fulfilled Alfred Heimer’s dream. The Rex Hotel was considered one of the best places to stay, and The Rex Corral Cafe offered a fine German meal with a satisfying beer. The Advertisement claimed, “Cold beer and good German lunches.”
“The Rex Corral Cafe’s name was eventually changed to the “Buffalo Bill Bar,” and then it simply became part of The Rex Hotel, just known as The Rex Hotel restaurant, probably during Prohibition.
However, Prohibition didn’t slow down business, for “a floating bar,” Billings’ form of a speakeasy, was simply set up in one of the rooms, and moved every day to a new location. It is said that The Rex Hotel was connected to the underground tunnels that once existed under Billings, where the illegal alcohol was moved and delivered to customers. These underground tunnels existed in many cities such as Butte, Portland, Prescott, and Los Angeles, and were used for this purpose.
During this time, prostitution and gambling probably also took place in The Rex on the second and third floors, as these two money-making activities usually were attached to a speakeasy. The basement was also used as a gambling den. A gambler’s book was found in one of the walls during the first major renovation done by owners A & E Architects, in 1976-77, that is discussed below.
The popularity of The Rex Hotel and its restaurant and bar continued through the 1930s, ’40s and ’50s. In the 1960s, the railroad business started its decline, because cheaper and faster ways to travel took off with the American people.
Clientele for The Rex Hotel dried up as the trains lost business to these other forms of transportation, causing economic strains, leaving little extra money to fix an aging building. The upper floors eventually became unusable as hotel rooms, and the basement and boiler room were full of asbestos, and couldn’t be used for anything until it was removed; not a cheap project.
Eventually the only floor that could be used was the main floor, and so the bar and restaurant continued to be in business. At some point, it became a real fixer-upper opportunity, and what income that was being raised by the restaurant and bar could no longer carry all the financial weight. The building was vacated, and put up for sale.
By 1975, it was decided that the best course of action was to just tear it down, as the private owners or the bank couldn’t find a buyer willing to pay for the expensive renovation and repair projects that the building badly needed. However, The Rex Hotel got a last minute reprieve when a Billings merchant, Senia Hart, stepped up to the plate and bought it J.I.T., just one day before the wrecking ball was scheduled to knock it down. Sounds like the people in charge really didn’t want to tear it down.
Senia Hart then got busy and found a buyer willing to put a boatload of money into this woebegone building. In 1976, A & E Architects P.C., located in Billings, bought The Rex Hotel building. The firm got to work, starting major renovations in two areas of the structure that really needed heavy investment: The basement and the boiler room, and the second and third floors. To make this property a viable financial success, the whole building needed to be put to work, to make money.
The basement and boiler room were renewed and given a new “business life,” with a “major cleanup” and most importantly, the asbestos was removed safely. Probably some non-weight bearing walls in the basement were taken down, to open up the space.
The hotel guest rooms on the second and third floor were gutted to the studs, sheer walls were installed, and the second and third floors were totally transformed into office spaces. A new roof was probably put on as well.
For the most part, the main floor just needed “a cosmetic interior renovation” for a fresh, more updated look, as this space was previously used as a restaurant and bar.
After completion of all the renovations, A & E Architects moved an existing restaurant business that they owned into the main floor and newly renovated basement area. They made good use of some of the office space as well, moving their offices into the upper floors of the building, as well as renting out the other spaces.
After ten years of using the building, in 1986, A & E Architects sold the property to The Rex Hotel Partnership, owned by an entrepreneur, Gene Burgadwith, who had a lot of vision and energy, with a new plan for The Rex Hotel building.
Gene Burgadwith hired A & E Architects to do another major face lift to renovate the restaurant and bar space into a first class steak joint, offering a blend of its western history with a contemporary feel. For example, Pictographs from local caves have been copied onto a 7,300 pound concrete island bar, and several tables as well.
In the late 1990’s, Gene Burgadwith succeeded in his quest to have the adjacent street next to the building closed! Burgadwith again went to his favorite architects, and commissioned A & E Architects to design a major addition to his restaurant in this space. The addition was designed to be “a lively and casual eating facility with a large outdoor patio.”
In 2006, A & E Architects were honored with the Montana Preservation Alliance “Excellence in Historic Preservation Award” for their designs and renovations done in this Rex Hotel addition, and for another building they designed and renovated in Billings: the Billings Depot.
A & E Architects have done projects all over Montana. They are doing wonderful work reinventing old buildings, remodeling and preserving structures to meet the needs of commercial use, while preserving the building, and keeping the best of the historical decor and architecture.
Sometime in late 2017, The Larson family bought the property and turned the informal atmosphere into an upscale western restaurant on the first floor, and banquet and meeting areas on the second. In 2018-2019, the first two floors were renovated, turning an informal atmosphere into a proper, upscale old western steak restaurant.
You may wonder how the restaurant got its name. Back in the day, frontier cities were looking for a cheap solution to pave dirt streets which had a number of annoying issues, including mud during the rainy season and the odor as well.
An entrepreneur invented the Buffalo Block, that was not only cheap, but water proofed and hard to destroy, the answer for paving dirt streets. Many such blocks were dug up from the old back patio.
The Larsons’ granddaughter is credited with coming up with the name Buffalo Block for their new restaurant. It was thought that this name “seemed to capture decades of history, harkening back to the days of Buffalo Bill and when the hotel bar went by the name of “Buffalo Bar,” Mr. Larson explained on a web page of the restaurant’s website.
The Buffalo Block Prime Steakhouse opened in October of 2019, featuring delicious steak, fish and out-of-this-world desserts. Their chefs were and are world-class, providing excellent meals well worth the price tag.
HISTORY OF MANIFESTATIONS
Major building renovation and restoration can act like a huge environmental trigger, and draw spirits connected to the building out and make them active.
The Geiser Grand Hotel, OR (Apparitions started to roam around the hotel during the big restoration; so happy that their beloved hotel was being restored).
Walker House, WI (The start of restoration activated two known spirits: One is mild-mannered and one is an unpleasant handful!).
Lemp Mansion, MO (During the restoration process of turning this flop boarding house back into its original splendid state, former spectral residents of the Lemp family kept a close eye on the work being done).
Buffalo Block Prime Steakhouse, MT (Both renovations done for the Rex building and the restaurant area drew spirits attached to the place).
Billings, Montana was a rough western town, where a lot of killings, muggings and opium smoking were the norm in its history. During Prohibition, the Mafia stepped in to provide not only booze, but also gambling and prostitution in speakeasies. Customers, employees or prostitutes who broke the rules were dealt with severely, losing their lives. The spirits of people who lost their lives because of murder, sometimes continue to look for their killer, or want some kind of justice.
Del Frisco’s Steak House, TX (The spirit of the card player, murdered for the money he won, still looks for his killer).
County Line BBQ Restaurant, OK (Russell was a well-known womanizer who made the mistake of flirting with a violent gangster’s girlfriend. Russell was shot in front of many patrons, and his spirit wants justice).
O’Henry’s Roadhouse Building, IL (A hapless bartender during the 1920s-’30s fell in love with one of the prostitutes, who was considered by a ruthless and cold gangster to be his property. The gangster broke the bartender’s neck, killing him. The gangster then beat the prostitute very badly, probably to death. It is thought that both were buried in the basement. Both murder victims can’t let go and want justice).
Buffalo Block Prime Steakhouse, MT (Three people are thought to have been murdered here. A bartender, a prostitute, and a rough gangster, a bootlegger or gambler, all did something to annoy or break the Mafia rules. These spirits find ways to express their feelings and attitudes about their demise).
People who enjoyed themselves in certain times and places sometimes continue to visit or reside there in their afterlives, still enjoying their memories, and even have their own events/parties that the living hear, and sometimes even see.
Miami Hilton, FL (Spirits are still partying on the 13th floor. Other spirits like to practice their ballroom dancing).
The Eagle Hotel, PA (Spirits have been seen and heard enjoying their social events and dances in the old ballroom).
Natatorium, TX (“Let the good times roll” is the focus of the spirits who still stay!).
Buffalo Block Prime Steakhouse, MT (The Spirits of past patrons, staff and mobsters enjoy the action and fellowship in the restaurant and its bar area, and the basement bar).
MANIFESTATIONS
General Activity
There are the usual tale-tell signs of spirits:
The feeling of not being alone.
Objects are moved.
Restaurant and Bar Area: first floor
An unknown number of male spirits like to take over when the restaurant and its bar are closed.
According to a psychic investigation, the spirit of a bartender identified himself as Buck. He was killed because he was skimming money.
A book about Rex Harrison that sits on a shelf above the bar, sometimes jumps over the lip of the shelf, and falls down on people sitting on the stools, talking about the ghosts, perhaps stating their unbelief.
While in the basement, alone in the building, staff have heard the stools being moved along the floor, and men’s disembodied voices talking when the restaurant and bar are closed.
Basement
A Bartender was pushed down, by an unsatisfied spirit customer or spirit bartender? Or perhaps by the grumpy entity in the basement.
According to Manager Reid Pyburn, one rowdy, annoyed spirit became aggressive in the basement, with the closing bartender; a tall, buff man, Jason.
Perhaps Jason reminded the spirit of the person who killed him. This angry spirit jumped on Jason from behind, knocking him to the floor and scratching him, scaring him to death.
Jason ran out of the bar, terrified, not finishing his rounds and duties.
Spectral Jokester
A male spirit likes to get his chuckles with the men who visit the bathroom in the bar area.
Men have heard someone come in while washing their hands, but find out that no-one is living in there with them.
Creepy Behavior
A male spirit, described as wearing a white shirt, doesn’t like to be spotted by the living. His death didn’t give him any positive behavior changes.
He likes to watch the women in the basement bathroom.
Many instances of women feeling that they are being watched have been reported.
A few women have come out of their stalls, to see this see-through male apparition, wearing a white shirt, staring at them.
One woman reported hearing someone enter the stall next to hers, and slam the door so hard that her door was vibrating. No one living was in the stall.
Electrical Fun!
After the closing bartender has shut the building, with all the outside lights turned off, the lights have a mind of their own, and pop on all by themselves.
Christmas lights are a favorite with the spirits here, and they love to turn them on after closing!
Some spirit likes to turn on coffee pots and equipment in the office for chuckles.
Basement Activity
After Hours, spirits still like to have wild parties late at night, that last into early morning in the bar.
While in the basement after hours, staff have heard men’s voices and the sounds of stools being dragged.
One or more Female Spirits
Female Voices are heard around women’s bathrooms.
The Spirit of a Female Upstairs
She is perhaps a roaring twenties party girl, or prostitute employed for some of the 1920s as Prohibition drinking parties took place upstairs.
Prostitution has long been a dangerous profession. Perhaps if she was killed, she doesn’t want to face it and continues on doing her routine work schedule.
Personal Appearances
What has been described as a ghostly figure, some say a female, has appeared on the stairs leading up to the second and third floors.
Her spirit has been seen walking around the 2nd and 3rd floors.
Unseen but Noticed
There have been reports of an unknown presence who has been experienced on the 2nd and 3rd floor business offices.
In some of the business offices, odd sounds are heard, and objects are moved around and put in different places than the workers had left them.
The building’s maintenance man once heard the sounds of high heels coming toward him in the hallway, heard them pass him by and continued on down the hallway.
PARANORMAL FINDING
When the derelict Rex Hotel building was saved in 1975, and bought by A & E Architects, it underwent a real face-lift restoration and renovation to bring it up to modern standards. After it opened for business, spirits became active.
Many patrons, staff, business tenants, and owners began to have personal experiences with these spectral characters who were activated.
The manager of The Rex Restaurant, Reid Pyburn, had some ghost experiences to tell.
Besides the scary activity that Bartender Jason survived, Pyburn states what happened in the restaurant. A patron asked to be moved to another table, because a male spirit was standing by her table, making it hard for her to enjoy her food!
Mediums have made contact with some of the spirits.
A psychic medium met the spirit of the former bartender Buck who shared what he did to get murdered by the Mafia.
Hard evidence has been caught by paranormal investigators but not much has been shared.
Owners don’t want to encourage the paranormal community, but some private investigations have taken place. Author Karen Stevens has investigated The Rex Restaurant and has stated that spirits reside there. She reported her findings in her book, More Haunted Montana, in 2007.
STILL HAUNTED?
Probably so, unless the Larson family had the building blessed and moved the spirits onto the spirit world. Even if they did so, perhaps spirits of the original patrons have come to reside or visit, as they would feel comfortable in the now posh settings, as the last renovation/restoration has turned back the clock to the building’s elegant beginnings that catered to the well-to-do.
LOCATION
2401 Montana Avenue
Billings, MT 59101
Can be found in the heart of the Billings Townsite Historic District, right across from the railroad station.
SOURCES INCLUDE
- More Haunted Montana
By Karen Stevens
pg. 28-34
Riverbend Publishing
2007 - Mina Morse
Business Manager for A & E Architects P.C.
Billings, MT - The Ghosts of the Rex in Billings, Montana on YouTube
- Angela’s Adventures: Haunted Billings Tour on YouTube
- “Readers treated to more hauntings,” by Chris Rubich, at Billings Gazette.com
- “Western Fare Fit For A King,” by Kay Reuser for Cowboys & Country Magazine, on The Rex Restaurant online
- Rex Restaurant page on Trip Advisor.com
- https://buffaloblock.com/
Our Haunted Paranormal Stories are Written by Julie Carr
Our Photos are copyrighted by Tom Carr
