Mother Lode Theater (315 W. Park)

By Richard I. Gibson

Architects: Link and Haire
Built: 1923
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The Mother Lode Theater and the Finlen Hotel represent the only large buildings surviving in Butte from the last construction boom in the early 1920s. With the end of World War I, demand for copper declined precipitously, leading to a declining population and ongoing economic woes that discouraged major building projects in Butte. All of Butte's mines were closed for months in the early 1920s.  This Beaux-Arts structure has four colossal engaged columns with Ionic capitals, lions' heads, decorative iron work, and multi-colored terra cotta highlighting its monumental façade. Art Deco interior features include the proscenium arch, whose openings are covered with fabric. The floor above the main theater contains a large ballroom presently used for set design and storage. Upper floors included offices and wardrobe facilities.

The theater was built as the Temple Theater annex by the Masons, whose temple dating to 1901 is attached to the Mother Lode on the east and Masonic symbols decorate the facade of the Mother Lode. The economic and population decline led the Masons to lease their 1200-seat auditorium as a movie theater (the Fox) beginning in the 1930s. By the 1950s and 60s, it was known as the Bow, followed by a reincarnation as the Fox. About 1983 the Masons donated the structure to Butte-Silver Bow City-County, which immediately leased it to the Butte Center for the Performing Arts, a non-profit group that has managed the site since then. The organization raised more than $3,000,000 for a restoration project completed in 1996, including a new roof, electrical and plumbing refurbishments, a new stage floor, upholstery, furnace, and marquee. In 1997 a lower-level children’s theater seating 106 was added.

The Mother Lode Theater is home to the Community Concert Association, the Butte Symphony, Montana Repertory Theatre, Missoula Children's Theatre, Western States Opera Company, San Diego Ballet Company, and the Montana Chorale. It is the only survivor of at least seven grand theaters from Butte’s heyday that hosted performers including Sarah Bernhardt, Enrico Caruso, Rudolph Valentino, Charlie Chaplin, and Mark Twain.

Photo by Richard Gibson.

8 West Park (Metals Bank Building)

Built: 1906
Architect: Cass Gilbert
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The strength of Butte’s early financial community is well represented in this monumental steel, brick, and stone skyscraper completed in 1906. Copper king F. Augustus Heinze financed the $325,000 bank building, incorporating the newest steel-frame and curtain-wall construction techniques. Nationally renowned architect Cass Gilbert (1859-1934) drew the blueprints and Montana architects Link and Haire supervised the local work. Gilbert’s best known work is New York City’s sixty-story Woolworth Building (1913) and the U.S. Supreme Court Building in Washington, D.C. (1932-1935).

One of Montana’s first skyscrapers, the Metals’ eight floors add significantly to Butte’s urban skyline. A copper-trimmed entry complements the gray stone. Above, brick walls and stone arches culminate at the sixth floor. Ornate wrought iron balconies punctuate the second and seventh floors. The cornice and exterior window casements are copper, largely with a black patina today. An open wrought-iron staircase carries this element inside, where copper-trimmed windows with African mahogany frames and a marble-walled elevator lobby reflect 1906 Butte’s wealth. A huge polished steel bank vault recalls the building’s first use.

Upper floors were renovated in the late 2000s to produce elegant loft apartments and condominiums. 

Modified from historic plaque by Montana Historical Society. 1979 photo from HABS/HAER survey, by Jet Lowe, via Library of Congress (public domain). Photo of copper-lined door by Richard Gibson.

Silver Bow County Courthouse

By Richard I. Gibson

155 West Granite Street
Architect: Link and Haire
Built: 1910-12
Map

This is the second Silver Bow county courthouse to occupy the corner of Granite and Montana Streets. Built in the Beaux-Arts style and faced in part with 70-million-year-old sandstone from Columbus, Montana, the building cost about $385,000 – nearly as much as the state capitol in Helena.

In the rotunda

Basic construction is steel frame. Interior columns contain ducts designed to allow fresh air flow into the building. Rotunda door frames are granite, painted to resemble wood—one of many details that addressed Butte’s persistent fire hazard. Pink railings surrounding the rotunda on upper floors are cast iron with scagliola plaster coatings— colored and polished plaster designed to resemble marble. Genuine marble is found in the main interior steps, rest rooms, and decorative elements throughout the building, as well as in the pendentives supporting the rotunda dome.

Two years after its opening, the courthouse served as barracks and headquarters for the militia that came to control Butte under three months of martial law in the wake of the dynamiting of the Miners Union Hall on North Main Street in June 1914. In September 1914, a Gatling gun was set up on the courthouse steps and a 5,000-candlepower searchlight was placed on the courthouse roof. The steps have seen visitors such as Eamon de Valera in 1919 and Franklin Roosevelt in 1932.

Since 1977 when the city of Butte and county of Silver Bow merged, this building has been the sole seat of government for the city-county. Prior to 1977, the City Hall served the city and this building served the county.

In 2012 the courthouse celebrated its centennial with a grand ball and other festivities.

Photos by Richard Gibson.