On April 14, 2011, Walter Breuning died in Great Falls, having lived for one hundred fourteen years and made his life as a railway worker in the United States.

Born on September 21, 1896, in Melrose, Breuning grew up as an American citizen during a period that would see extraordinary change across the country and the world. He went on to work in the railway industry, an occupation that placed him within one of the defining sectors of American labor and infrastructure during the twentieth century.

Breuning spent his final years in Great Falls, where he died on April 14, 2011, at the age of one hundred fourteen. His birth in 1896 and death in 2011 meant that his life spanned portions of three different centuries, from the late Victorian era through the early decades of the twenty-first century. Having been born in Melrose and working as a railway worker throughout his career, Breuning's life traced a path through the practical, working dimensions of American life. His death in Great Falls in 2011 marked the end of a life that had extended well beyond the ordinary bounds of human longevity, a fact that distinguished his biography from those of nearly all his contemporaries.