42 West Broadway (Independent Order of Good Templars)

Built: 1891
Architect: Henry Patterson
Map  

Both men and women were admitted to this temperance organization, whose Montana Grand Lodge was organized in 1868. Butte Lodge #14 commissioned architect H. M. Patterson to design this appealing three-story building, completed in 1891, where the third floor served as the group’s meeting hall. While Patterson demonstrated exceptional talent in local residential design, his commercial and public commissions were the key to his considerable reputation. This was his first major commercial project. The upper floors reveal Patterson’s creative flair: graceful semi-circular arches, recessed windows with rough-faced stone sills, and fine decorative brickwork. The building’s sometime use as a bar defied the Templar ethic to “…never cease until the last vestige of that fearful vice … is driven from our land.” Today, an antique shop occupies the ground floor.

In 2013, the vaulted sidewalk here was replaced, revealing the early construction method. A wooden framework was built within the vault, and wood planks, about 2”x12” were laid down to create a substrate upon which the concrete sidewalk was poured. When vaulted sidewalks are retained in Butte today, a steel framework forms the base for the concrete.

 Resource: Historical plaque by Montana Historical Society. See also Historic Uptown Butte, by John DeHaas, Jr., privately published, 1977. Photo by Richard I. Gibson.

205 North Washington

Built: 1891
Map 

Neoclassical design elements define this substantial two-story brick home built in 1891. Dentils ornament the eaveline, multi-pane windows dominate the symmetrical front façade, and doubled columns provide support for what was once a full-length front porch with a second-story balustrade. A decorative iron fence symbolically separates the family sanctuary from the outside world and likely dates to the home’s construction.

The small garage, added sometime between 1900 and 1916, reflects the increasing importance of the automobile. Physicians were particularly indebted to their cars for ready transportation on late-night calls, and this residence was home to two doctors. Abram Leggat, a general physician and surgeon with an office in the Hennessey Building, lived here between 1900 and 1902, before he and his wife, Hattie, decided to move with their daughter to St. Louis. Dr. John McIntyre, a skilled surgeon and the medical examiner for several fraternal organizations, lived here with his wife, Annie, between 1910 and 1917.

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

Renick House (727 West Park)

Built: 1891
Map 

This Victorian-era residence exhibits many Queen Anne details, including an ornate floral pattern in the transom above the windows and a large sunray motif in the gable. The interior boasts three hand-milled fireplaces, oak doors, a stunning white oak staircase, and Tiffany stained-glass windows in the front entry. Built around 1891, a second story was added to the home during a $6,000 remodeling in 1900. Early ownership of the home is unclear, but by 1900 Katherine Q. Clark, wife of copper king W. A. Clark’s son Charles, owned the home. Katherine sold the home to her sister Ada Renick in 1903. Ada and her husband W. L. became the first owners to actually live in the residence. W. L. Renick was a respected physician in Butte until the family relocated to California in 1920. Local attorney and miner John Templeman and his wife Irene Isabella purchased the home from the Renicks and lived here until 1943. The home has been well preserved and maintained over the years, retaining its historic integrity.

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

The Cabbage Patch

By Richard I. Gibson

108½ South Arizona
Built: pre-1891
Map

These shacks and outbuildings were at the extreme north end of the shanty town that grew up in the 1880s on the near southeast side of Butte’s main business district. The “Patch” was home to bootleggers, drunks, prostitutes, poor families, newly arrived immigrants, widows with children, criminals, and other down-on-their luck residents.

Construction is truly vernacular, using available materials, scavenged or stolen from waste piles, mine yards, and elsewhere. In 1916, the Cabbage Patch extended approximately from Arizona Street on the west to Oklahoma St. on the east, and from Galena (and its extension) on the north to Platinum or Porphyry on the south. Most of the buildings – more than 200 – were razed in 1940-41 to make way for Silver Bow Homes, the ranks of low-income apartments that still stand south of Mercury Street. At about the same time, the buildings here were converted to garages, with addition of flooring and large garage doors.

When used as residences, these places had dirt floors, and no electricity, running water, or sewer systems. Important original elements include scraps of linoleum and loose fabric used as wallpaper and insulation, and pressed tin and wood timber walls. The name reflects the frequent use of cabbage in meals—that smell, combined with that of the open sewer that wound its way through the district, contributed to the seedy feel of the neighborhood.

The surviving buildings of the Cabbage Patch are part of a tour with Old Butte Historical Adventures.

Modified slightly from original publication in Vernacular Architecture Forum, Butte Conference Guidebook, 2009, p. 102-103, by Richard Gibson. Additional resource: Butte Voices, by Pat Kearney, Skyhigh Communications, 1998. Photos by Richard Gibson.