Better Service Station

By Richard I. Gibson

109 N. Wyoming; 64 E. Granite
Built: 1928
Map

This is the only surviving 1920s gas station in Butte, and one of only a few in Montana. It was originally owned by J.B. Halford and R.P. Morris, who had it built in 1928 at a cost of $3,000, and ran it under the name Better Service Station. This corner held a small pre-1884 house that in 1891 was a carpenter’s shop and upholstery business. By 1916, the corner was a vacant lot, likely vacant until the gas station was built in 1928.

In 2007.

James and Mae Halford lived on the Flats at 1940 Oregon, and in addition to the service station he held a job as a lineman for the Mountain States Telephone Company in 1928. Roy and Sarah Morris lived at 1310 West Gold Street when the gas station opened in 1928.

The station was still operating in 1979, as a Conoco franchise.

Sources: Architectural inventories, Sanborn maps, city directories. Top photo from HAER survey, 1979, by Jet Lowe, from Library of Congress. 2007 photo by Richard I. Gibson.

327 and 331 North Wyoming

327 (left) and 331 North Wyoming

By Richard I. Gibson

Built: pre-1884
Map

These two houses both predate 1884, making them among the oldest survivors in Butte. A third house, a plastered 2-story home built before 1888, once occupied the lot to the south at 323.

An early resident of 327 was John A. Montgomery, a tailor who had come to Butte from England, and his wife Ella (from Wisconsin), their daughter, and a lodger who was also a tailor. It is a wood frame house.

331 N. Wyoming was originally owned by Marcus Daly, who sold it in February 1891 to Mrs. Mary (Margaret) Weed, widow of Fitzgerald Weed, for $2,500. Mrs. Weed was still living there in 1900. In 1910, miner John Kennedy from Ireland lived here with his wife, daughter, cousin, and two more lodgers. The house is brick veneer over wood frame, with later stucco and siding added. It originally had a double bay front, but after 1916 the bays were removed and the porch added.

These two houses have seen a lot of Butte history. North across Copper Street from 331 was the Washoe Mine in 1884, closed by 1888 but still there for several years thereafter. The corner of Copper and Wyoming is near the foot of the Anaconda Road, where thousands of men poured down from the Hill at every shift change. A saloon stood directly across Wyoming from 331, on the southeast corner of Copper and Wyoming. In 1884, an early Miner’s Union Hall was a half-block south of these houses at the corner of Wyoming and Quartz, and across the street and slightly down Wyoming Street, the Butte Brewery, Finlander Hall, and Mrs. Byrnes’ Boarding House stood—the latter the site of Frank Little’s abduction in 1917.

Sources: Architectural inventories, Sanborn maps, city directories. Photo by Richard I. Gibson.

401 North Wyoming

By Richard I. Gibson

Built: 1896
Map

This boarding house at the corner of Copper and Wyoming Streets was built in 1896 at a cost of $4,000. It is a brick-veneered frame two-story flat, with decorative brick corbelling at the cornice.

Mrs. Maggie Shay was the original owner and manager of the house, conveniently located almost at the foot of the Anaconda Road where thousands of men passed every day at shift change time. By 1900, Thomas Curtis was running the boarding house. In 1910, the place was managed by Mrs. Irene Crossan. Peter Hastings, an immigrant from Ireland, came to Butte about 1915 and lived here in 1916. Peter died in the Granite Mountain fire June 8-9, 1917, and was buried in the mass grave in Mountain View Cemetery containing the 66 unidentified bodies from that disaster.

In 1935, Mrs. John O'Neill lived here. See this Butte History post for a story connected to her and her son, a policeman killed in the line of duty.

The address here was 417 N. Wyoming for much of its early history, changing to 401 sometime before 1951. The photo above includes a lot of history in the background: 31 E. Copper at the left edge of the view, with the U.S. Federal Building behind it; the Original Mine headframe; St. Mary's Church beyond the roof of 401; and a little house immediately behind 401, to the left, which was moved from up the Anaconda Road.

Sources: Architectural inventory, Sanborn maps, city directories. 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.