206-210-212 S. Idaho

210 S. Idaho (left), 212 (right), c. 1984

By Richard I. Gibson
Built: 1884-96
Status: lost (parking lot today)
Map 

210 S. Idaho

The east side of the 200 block of South Idaho Street, across from the old St. James Hospital, once held eight cottages (six of them two-story) and two 4-plexes (single stories plus basements). All are gone today, but three survived into the early 1980s.

206 S. Idaho was a porch-and-gable-roofed cottage begun before 1884, when the original front section stood flush with the sidewalk. A rear extension was added by 1890 and a second addition by 1900 made the house even longer. An early owner was Anthony Formel, who was a clerk at the A.W. Noble drug store (71 E. Park) in 1891-92; in 1893 he was listed as a dentist. His wife Kate ran the saloon at 130 South Main. In 1892, the Fornels sold the property to Victor Strasburger, a clerk at the Herman Strasburger furniture store at 80 West Park. The Strasburger clan lived largely at 124-126 West Granite in the 1890s, and it appears that they purchased this house to use as rental property.

210 S. Idaho was a one-story frame house constructed in 1896 for Mrs. Nellie E. Jones at a cost of $1,000. About 1899 a second was added to the main house and a single-story 8x16 kitchen was added to the rear; another rear addition was also added later. A large stable and wagon shed occupied much of the lot behind 210-212 S. Idaho.

212 S. Idaho was also built for Mrs. Nellie Jones about 1884-88. It stood very near, but not touching, 210 to the north. In contrast to the flat roof on 210, 212 had a sharp gable rooftop.

Resources: Architectural inventories in Butte Archives (sources of photos, which are tiny in the inventories hence the low resolution); Sanborn maps; city directories.

350 East Granite

By Richard I. Gibson

Built: 1890-91
Status: lost
Map 

This porch- and gable-fronted cottage was among the last survivors on East Granite Street, still standing in 1985, but gone today. It was a brick-veneer frame home, with a wrought-iron fence.

One of the earliest renters here was James Burton, a miner from Michigan of Scottish ancestry, and his wife Agnes, from Minnesota of Irish heritage. Burton was a miner in 1900, but in 1901 he was a policeman living here. He moved in 1902 across the street and a few doors west, to 341 E. Granite, adjacent to the Blue Jay mine yard. He continued his community service work in 1902-03 as a pipeman with Hose Company #1 and as a fireman for Hook & Ladder Co. #1.

Mrs. John Anderson lived here in 1908 when she died July 1 of scarlet fever. Toivo and Anna Saari lived in the home in the late 1950s.

The house was present when the satellite view on Google Maps was made, but was gone by the time Google Street View came to Butte about 2009; it was demolished in the spring of 2004 by the Butte Public Works Department.

Sources: Architectural inventories, Sanborn maps, city directories. Top photo from architectural inventory, probably by Mary Murphy. Small photos (before and during demolition) from Butte Public Works Dept. presentation, 2004.

307 West Granite

307 West Granite, at right. This is a vacant lot today.

By Richard I. Gibson

Built: 1899
Status: lost (2008 fire)
Map

Patrick Deloughry, a carpenter at the East Gem Mine, built this house to replace a pre-1888 single-story brick veneered home that stood here. Deloughry lived almost across the alley behind this site, at 310 West Quartz Street.

William Waugh, a lawyer, and Jeanne Stewart, an art teacher, lived here at least from 1928 until 1937. After World War II, the house was converted to apartments, and in 1948-49 at least 13 people lived in this home. They included Pearl Rowe (widow of James); Lois Johnson (dictaphone operator for the Texas Company, dealer in oil and lubricants); David Bell (miner); Corrine Gutz (widow of Walter, she was head of the ACM Publicity and Information Office); Ole Nelson (steward, Eagles Club); Martin Makeli (student); Mable Fletcher (practical nurse); Kate & James Rockefeller (he was a clerk); Margaret & Henry Freudenstein (another clerk); William Dagg (an announcer); and William Graham (cook at the Finlen Hotel).

In 2008, ten tenants were occupying eight apartment units when a smoldering cigarette started a fire that destroyed the building on July 29. Estimated rebuilding costs of more than $500,000 were not covered by insurance, and the building was demolished.

Resources: Architectural inventory; Sanborn Maps; city directories; online record of law suit between owner and insurance company. Photos 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.

Ancient Order of Hibernians Hall, 321-323 East Commercial Street

City: Anaconda
Built: 1896-99
Status: lost (parking lot today)
Map

East facade

This building was the headquarters for the local chapter of the Ancient Order of Hibernians, an Irish fraternal organization first established in Anaconda in 1885. The A.O.H. auxiliary was officially organized on May 17, 1896 with 45 charter members. Today the Anaconda A.O.H. is one of the two existing chapters west of the Mississippi. The other is in San Francisco. D.J. Hennessy, founder of Hennessy Department Store, Butte, loaned the Anaconda A.O.H. division the money to build the Hibernian Block.

The building was erected in two stages and cost a total of $30,000 to construct. In 1896, a one-story brick structure, measuring 50' x 80' was completed at the southwest corner of East Commercial Avenue and Cedar Street. The building included two storefronts at the East Commercial Avenue facade, with three additional storefronts to the rear on Cedar Street. The second building, expanding the overall structural dimension to 50' x 140', was begun in the spring of 1898 and completed in early January, 1899. Pressed brick with trimmings of sandstone, granite, and terra cotta were used in both portions of this structure. When completed, the A.O.H. Hall was equipped with electric lighting, steam heating, and other "modern" conveniences. This hall was the center of all A.O.H. activities until January 1977 when it was purchased by the Urban Renewal Department of the city of Anaconda for $50,000. In the late 1970s it was under the ownership and supervision of the Community Development Agency. It was demolished c. 1985.

Sources: Photos by Jet Lowe (HABS/HAER, c. 1979, from Library of Congress; public domain). Text modified from HABS/HAER documentation, Monica Hawley, historian. Fred Quivik, Field Team; Brian Shovers, historian. Reference: HABS document

National Register of Historic Places NRIS Number: 98000155