9 North Excelsior (William Symons Residence)

Built: 1908
Map

A graceful rounded portico with Ionic columns and a central square bay with French doors highlight the perfect symmetry of this grand Classical Revival style residence of tan brick veneer and red sandstone trim. Elegant details include elaborate brackets, dentils, a round window, and full-width veranda. Classical harmony carries through to the interior in a perfectly symmetrical floorplan. Fine turn-of-the-century appointments include a dining room with the original leather-clad walls, inlaid oak flooring, and pocket doors throughout the first floor. Local contractor Byron Whitney built the home circa 1908 for the William Symons family. Symons, with his brother Harry, founded Butte’s premier department store in 1897. Wholesale grocer Charles Youlden was the next owner from the mid-1920s until his death in 1940. Among his many philanthropic and civic contributions, Youlden was the longtime director of the YMCA. The prestigious, well-maintained home remains a prominent Butte landmark and attractive neighborhood anchor.

Resources: Historical plaque by Montana Historical Society. Photo by Richard I. Gibson.

5 North Excelsior (Gillies/Parent House)

Built: 1901
Map

This showcase Queen Anne style home adds ambiance to one of Butte’s most prominent blocks. An elegant brick arch, flared overhangs accentuated with wooden brackets, projecting oriel windows, a centered Palladian window, and an extended gable decoration visually complicate the front facade. Constructed in 1901, it was home to Bettie Boyce and her husband, mining engineer Donald Gillies, who served as superintendent and ultimately manager of the W. A. Clark properties. In 1923, the Gillies’ daughter Lynnie married Horace Siegel, manager of Siegel Clothing. The Butte Miner described the wedding, which included a reception at the home, as one of the most notable ever in Butte. The Gillies and Siegels owned the house until 1928 when they sold it to Thomas and Esther Parent. Thomas worked as a salesman for the Symons Department Store, whose owner built the mansion next door. In 1932 the Parent family waved from the front yard as Franklin D. Roosevelt’s motorcade passed by. Their son Thomas Jr. and his wife Mildred raised four children in the home, and it continues to remain in the Parent family as of 2012.

Resources: Historical plaque by Montana Historical Society. Photo by Richard I. Gibson.

St. Paul’s Methodist Episcopal Church

By Richard I. Gibson

101 S. Idaho
Built: 1899
Architect: William White
Map 

Click images to enlarge

1905

1901

Noted architect William White designed this majestic, multi-gabled church of stone and brick, built at a cost of $10,000 in 1899. Gothic lancet windows, stained glass, Romanesque arches, and wood tracery in the gable windows showcase White’s meticulous attention to fine detail. A steeple above the entry and pyramidal roof once crowned the two corner towers, visible in the 1905 sketch. Architect White was in partnership with A. Werner Lignell in 1900; their offices were in the Silver Bow Block (the old one, where the parking lot stands today just west of Main on Granite Street). In 1901 White’s independent office was in the Bee Hive Building on East Broadway (part of the NorthWestern Energy buildings today) and he was living at 1035 Caledonia.

1918

1918

By 1918, the church was owned by mortician (and later Silver Bow Sheriff) Larry Dugan, a sympathizer with the incendiary Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). The building then housed the Butte Daily Bulletin (later known as the Butte Strike Bulletin), a radical newspaper voicing policies of the anti-Anaconda Nonpartisan League, published by William F. Dunne. On September 13, 1918, local police and federal troops under Major Omar N. Bradley raided the Bulletin, arresting twenty-four men and thwarting a miners’ strike.

It is likely but not certain that the stained glass windows were fabricated by the Butte Art Stained Glass Works. By 2013, the windows had been covered to help protect them, and in 2015, Uptown Works received a $5,000 grant from the Montana History Foundation to restore them.


In later years, Larry Dugan operated his mortuary here, and more recently Beverly Hayes ran a bridal shop in the building. The owner today is slowly restoring it.

Resources: Historic plaque by Montana Historical Society (the plaque says the raid took place on Sept. 14, but it was actually on the 13th); architectural inventory in Butte Archives; Sanborn maps; city directories (White advertisement, 1901); Butte Miner Dec. 17, 1905 (sketch with steeple); Butte Post Sept. 16, 1918 (Bradley photo); Butte Miner Sept. 14-16, 1918 (news article). Modern photos by Richard I. Gibson.

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.

801 North Montana

Built: 1895
Map 

Members of the intertwined Sullivan and Hogan families shared this two-story residence as early as 1895. The early, wood-frame home originally had a small porch to the north of the large bay window; the full-length front porch was added between 1901 and 1916. Joseph Hogan was a member of Montana's first constitutional convention and Montana’s first state mining inspector, but the 1895 city directory listed him and his brothers-in-law, Eugene and Daniel Sullivan, as miners.

When Joseph died in 1900, Daniel was working as county deputy treasurer; his sister Margaret (Joseph's widow) continued to live with him. So did her four children, ages one, three, four, and seven. A teacher before her marriage, Margaret returned to the classroom after Joseph's death. In 1906, eight years before Montana women received the right to vote in general elections, she was elected County Superintendent of Schools, the only elected position women were allowed to hold. Margaret's daughter Maybelle followed in her mother's footsteps, becoming a teacher and then, for almost forty years, the county school superintendent. Maybelle remained in residence until her death in 1970.

Resource: historic plaque by Montana Historical Society. Photo by Richard I. Gibson.

726 North Montana

Built: c. 1910
Map

Among the miners flocking to Butte was Joseph Dillon, who immigrated to the United States from England in the 1861. By 1885, he worked at the Lexington (one of the camp’s early silver mines) and lived on “upper Montana street” with his wife Mary and the first of their seven children. The Dillons resided in a one-story wooden residence, adding a large front porch by 1900. Between 1900 and 1916, the family replaced their modest dwelling with this brick-veneered Queen Anne-style two-story home. Decorative brick corbelling along the cornice and a two-story bay window define the exterior. As was common, the Dillons’ grown children lived at home until they married and their wages (earned as a stenographer, wagon driver, and office worker) almost certainly helped pay for the transformation. Joseph died in 1912, but Mary continued to live here until her death in 1936. Her son Eugene and his family occupied the home through the 1940s.

Resource: information modified slightly from historic plaque by Montana Historical Society. Photo by Richard I. Gibson.

614 North Alaska

614 N. Alaska (pink building with parapet at center). Original Mine Headframe in background.

Built: c. 1890
Map

Close proximity to the Original and Stewart mines guaranteed a steady stream of miners to keep the beds of this boardinghouse occupied. Built circa 1890, the two-story bay-fronted flat accommodated at least a dozen lodgers. From 1895 to 1906, Welsh miner John Williams owned the building, and his wife Mary looked after the boarders. In 1910, Michael Sullivan owned the house. While he listed “own income” as his profession, his wife Mary and a servant must have worked long hours keeping their twelve single miners well fed and housed.

The house is an excellent illustration of 1890s boardinghouse architecture and its kinship with the Queen Anne cottage, a popular form of workers’ housing common to urban areas during the 1890s. Arched windows, turned porch posts, a transomed front door, and decorative metal brackets are elements indicative of the Victorian era. Three finials highlight the metal cornice at the roof line and four interior chimneys are evidence of the period heating system, which kept residents comfortable during brutal Montana winters. This building’s address was originally 616 N. Alaska; by 1916 it was 614.

Resource: information modified slightly from historic plaque by Montana Historical Society. Photo by Richard I. Gibson.