Albert John Gibson was born in 1862 in Savannah, Ohio. He moved to Butte, Montana, when he was twenty-one and worked there for five years. In 1888, he arrived in Missoula, Montana, and worked with E.C. Selander as a carpenter. He later formed a partnership with Robert Mentrum and began to study architecture, for which he exhibited a natural genius. Gibson designed St. Patrick's Hospital, Missoula City-County High School, the Missoula County Courthouse, Sacred Heart Academy, most of the early University of Montana buildings, the Greenough Mansion, the Ravalli County Courthouse, and many other buildings in Montana and Idaho.

Although he officially retired in 1909, Gibson remained involved in the projects of his protégé, Ole Bakke. In the 1910s, while Gibson actively pursued his interest in long-distance automobile touring, Bakke continued the Gibson architectural tradition in Western Montana and Idaho, designing numerous public and private buildings.

In 1920, Bakke hired H. E. Kirkemo as a draftsman. Kirkemo worked with Bakke on important Missoula buildings including the Wilma Theatre and Thornton Hospital. After Bakke retired, Kirkemo continued the architectural firm under his own name. Formally trained, Kirkemo created innovative designs using modern architectural theory and materials. Kirkemo designed hundreds of public and private buildings throughout Western Montana and Idaho. When he retired in the early 1960s, his son James W. Kirkemo took over the business. James Kirkemo, Sheldon Witwer, and Stuart Price are responsible for many of the prominent, modern buildings in Missoula and Western Montana.