211 West Quartz (Bridget Shea Residence)

Built: 1885
Map

Tucked into the steep slope of a Butte hill, this wonderfully preserved four-square cottage well represents Butte’s working backbone. Real estate mogul Josiah Beck built the modest home in 1885 over the Silver King Lode. Charles Eltinge, its first owner, was a correspondence clerk for W. A. Clark. The Eltinge family was strangely connected to America’s first famous female impersonator, William Julian Dalton, who was a neighbor and chum of Eltinge’s son. The performer took Julian Eltinge as his stage name.

By 1916, James and Bridget Shea owned the home. Widowed during the influenza epidemic of 1918, Bridget raised four small children working as a waitress. She began a 25-year career in 1930 as business agent for the Women’s Protective Union, likely having experienced this need firsthand. The Shea family owned the house until 1978. Unusual decorative lattice and diamond openings at the porch base add individuality to the standard vernacular design. Original varnished woodwork, French doors, and hardwood floors grace the interior. Bridget’s carefully tended garden of shrub roses, lilacs, and lavender are a fragrant and lasting legacy.

The house was built as a small four-square home, but a kitchen was added on the north side before 1888, and further additions between 1900 and 1916 created a long rectangular building. The front porch was enclosed in the 1930s. This block was Irish for at least 50 years; the shamrock and “IRA” for Irish Republican Army, painted in the basement, date to 1932. Basement wall construction is diverse, including unmortared rubble, brick, granite blocks, and granite bedrock.

Resources: Historic plaque by Montana Historical Society; Vernacular Architecture Forum Guidebook, Butte, Montana, 2009, 211 West Quartz Street, by Richard Gibson; Architectural inventory; Sanborn Maps; city directories. Photo by Richard I. Gibson.

314 West Granite

By Richard I. Gibson

Built: 1884-1885
Map

John G. Hammer, bookkeeper with the John Caplice Company, built this house as a one-story residence before 1885; the early address was 163 W. Granite. Hammer established and became manager of the Butte Sewer-Pipe & Tile Company in 1889, and was successful enough that in 1899 he added the second story to his home. He continued to manage the company and live here until 1912, when he moved to Portland, Oregon where he purchased an $11,000 home at 530 East 17th Street North.

In 1910, Hammer’s daughter Florence and her husband Terry John also lived here. Florence worked as a bookkeeper for the tile company until at least 1920. Another daughter, Alberta, married William Siderfin, manager of W.A. Clark’s interests in Butte. John Hammer was secretary of the Butte Chapter of the American Institute of Mining Engineers in 1887, when W. A. Clark was its President. Hammer was born in Saxony, Germany, about 1849 and died about 1913. Julia, his wife, was prominent in Portland social circles and died there July 1, 1935.

In 1907, Hammer’s brick plant south of Silver Bow Creek was producing 5,500,000 bricks per year. The clay was mined locally (fireclay was mined near Whitehall after 1902), and the main plant was located west of Montana Street, west of the cemeteries south of the creek. The tile shop stood at Oregon and Second Avenue.

In 1928, Mancel (sometimes given as Myrle) Larson was living here. He was a shift boss for the Anaconda Copper Mining Co. As the Great Depression began to take its toll, large houses like this one became boarding houses. Larson began to take in boarders about 1935; in 1937, when he worked at the Emma Mine, his tenants were Maybelle Baird (widow of James), a stenographer for the Montana Service Corp., a dealer in dairy products; Katherine McDaniel (widow of John), a nurse, and her daughter Marie, a student at Butte Business College; Maud Maloney (widow of William); and Helen Curtis (widow of Charles), head of the County Child Welfare Department.  By 1940 all but Baird were still living here, and Walter Thomas; Ray and Lumina Rowan (a salesman and cosmetics representative, respectively); Wendell and Ardell Peck (he was another salesman); and Violet Blecka all called this house their home as well.

Even in 1948, at least nine people lived here: Ernestine and Clifford (ACM mining engineer) Clifton; Alta Spain (public school teacher); Hazel Andrus (cashier, Finlen Hotel); Beatrice and Hal Hennigh (beauty parlor operator and barber); Jean and Ivan Nevans (he was a clerk); and Alyce O'Connor, a nurse at St. James Hospital.

Resources: Architectural inventory; Sanborn Maps; city directories; Brick and Clay Record, Volumes 26-27, June 1907, article by J.P. Rowe, p. 291; Anaconda Standard newspapers; AIME Transactions, 1887; Progressive Men of the State of Montana (1901). Photo by Richard I. Gibson.

Butte Brewery

By Richard I. Gibson

218-220 N. Wyoming, at Quartz
Business began 1885
Status: lost circa 1965

The Butte Brewery was established by Henry Muntzer in 1885, nine years after Butte’s first brewery, the Centennial. Beginning in the late 1890s, managers expanded production and built or re-built many of the brewery’s buildings on North Wyoming between Granite and Copper Streets. Capacity was expected to grow to 125 barrels per day in 1901, and the new malthouse was to handle 10,000 pounds per day. The brewery initially used water flowing in the stream that came out of Dublin Gulch, but by the early 1890s, that stream was filled and covered, and the brewery was on city water.

The main building in the photo here was constructed in the late 1890s and included beer cellars in the basement of the 2-story section, with the fermenting floor on the ground level and lodge rooms on the second floor. The rear 3-story section held coolers, hop storage, a wash house, and the cooper shop. Multiple additional buildings covered the grounds, ranging from a bottling facility to stables.

The building at left (224-226 N. Wyoming) with the decorative cornice was the Brewery Saloon, with the brewer’s residence above. Later that second-floor space became a hand-ball court.

By 1910, T.J. Nerny was President. He got his start with the Citizens Brewery of Chicago in the 1890s, and came to Butte by about 1905. His home in 1910, when he was President of the Butte Brewery, was at 301 N. Alabama, and John Harrington, the brewery’s Secretary-Treasurer, lived up the block at 318 N Alabama. In 1917, with statewide Prohibition coming in 1919, the brewery promoted its Eureka Beer as “Liquid food for temperate people.” The Butte Brewery was the only one in Butte that survived Prohibition, by producing malted soft drinks and other beverages (using the Checo brand), but it did not survive the economic downturn that affected Butte in the 1960s and 1970s. They were out of business about 1963 and the brewery buildings were demolished soon after. Today the location is occupied by the Rodeway Inn (Capri Motel) (map). For 44 years, Butte did not have a brewery, until Quarry Brewing opened in 2007.

In 2013, a new brewery is under construction on Butte’s east side that will resurrect the Butte Brewery name and brands.

Image sources: scans by Butte-Silver Bow Public Library. Brewery, from A Brief History of Butte, Montana, by Harry C. Freeman, 1901. T.J. Nerny, Vice-President Butte Brewing Company, Butte, MT, image taken from p. 107 of Cartoons and Caricatures of Men in Montana (1907) by E.A. Thomson. Reference: Steve Lozar, "1,000,000 Glasses a Day: Butte's Beer History on Tap," Montana: the Magazine of Western History 56/4 (2006): 46-55. Additional resources: Sanborn maps, city directories.