3 West Agate (Norman Charles Block)

By Richard I. Gibson

Built: 1898
Map

Norman Charles was an early Butte resident, listed as an expressman (a cargo manager for a railway company) in 1885. By 1891, he and partner John King (later, Charles partnered with John Spargo, who roomed at 117 W. Copper) were operating a saloon on the west side of the cable line, “2 south of power house”—meaning the electricity generating station for what was evolving from the cable car line to the Butte Electric Street Railway. The saloon location was at the corner of the alley west of Main Street and the alley between Agate and Ruby Streets just north of the location of the boarding house in the photo above. Charles lived on West Agate Street, in a house at #7.

By 1900, Charles had moved his saloon to a more prominent location, 69 East Park, in the east half of the building housing Rudolph’s Furniture today. And he was successful enough that in 1898 he erected a large double-bay fronted boarding house at #3 West Agate, shown in the photo above. The parapet reads “Norman Charles Block 1898”. The porch enclosure is not original. The Charles Block replaced a large double-bay-fronted frame dwelling of 1½ stories, probably Charles' previous residence at #7, but the address scheme is unclear for the 1880s and early 1890s.

This enclave of a few blocks was surrounded by industry, with the trolley barn and power house a block north, the Clear Grit mine a block east across Main Street, and railroads, both the Butte Anaconda & Pacific and the Montana Union, bounding the northern and southern limits. There was a gulch to the west which ultimately drained south, past the Original Mine and the Court House. That gulch is still present today as a culvert that approximates Alaska Street and continues underneath the heart of the central business district. The photo below, from Jean Koskimaki's collection from the 1950s, shows the isolation of this area. Of the buildings in the photo below, only the Charles Block still stands.

Norman Charles was living at 504 S. Washington in 1910, and probably died before 1918.

Resources: Sanborn Maps, City directories. Photo by Richard I. Gibson. 1950s photo by Jean Koskimaki.

406 West Granite

By Richard I. Gibson

Built: 1898
Map

This house was constructed in 1898 by the Thompson Investment Company, which built many of the smaller miner’s cottages and other homes in developing Butte. The front porch, which formerly extended the width of the building, was added before 1916.

Resources: Architectural inventory; Sanborn Maps; city directories. Photo by Richard I. Gibson.

724 West Granite (Powers Residence)

Built: 1898
Architect: R.R. Williams
Map 

For almost one hundred years, members of a single family lived in this Queen Anne style cottage. Carpenter R. R. Williams, who lived in the duplex next door, built the residence in 1898. By 1900, Irish immigrants John and Catherine Powers had purchased the home, where they lived with their infant daughter Margaret. John worked as a miner before going into real estate. By 1916, the Powers family had improved the residence, replacing the outhouse with indoor plumbing, adding a rear screen porch, and installing a gambrel dormer to expand the attic’s storage capacity.

After John and Catherine’s deaths, Margaret inherited the home. She lived here into the 1990s, joined for many years by her friend Virginia Orton. The seven-hundred-square-foot home features a projecting bay and many other Queen Anne style embellishments. These include stained glass, fish-scale shingles, turned wooden porch supports, a turned balustrade, and a spindle frieze—all mass produced and thus affordable to Butte’s working class. Such architectural ornamentation helped transform small houses like this one into much loved homes, as the Powers’ long residence testifies. Architect and carpenter R.R. Williams lived in the duplex next door to this house.

Modified from historic plaque text by Montana Historical Society. Additional resource: Vernacular Architecture Forum, Butte conference guidebook, 2009, p. 146. Photo by Richard Gibson.

129-135 West Broadway (J.L. Morris Building)

Built: 1898
Architect: Henry Patterson
Map

H. M. Patterson designed this residential building for J. L. Morris in 1898, replacing an earlier dwelling. A year later, Morris commissioned J. A. Riddell to add a storefront to the east at a cost of $9,000. Danish immigrant L. M. Brobeck rented the building in 1900, opened a grocery business on the ground floor, and lived upstairs with his family. The first floor, with its cast-iron storefront, reflects the 1899 commercial addition, while the upper floor displays Patterson’s lively creativity. Arches of quarry-faced stone, oriel windows, and decorative brickwork distinguish this pleasing building, which today continues its commercial function.

From historic plaque by Montana Historical Society. Photo by Richard Gibson.

16 East Granite (Hennessy Building)

Built: 1898
Architect: Frederick Kees
Map

The prominent corner of Granite and Main Streets was occupied in 1876 by the Centennial Hotel, which opened on July 4 that year. After the hotel burned in 1888, apart from some tiny buildings, including a tailor's office, a news stand, and a fruit stand in 1891, the lot was largely vacant until 1897 when construction began on the Hennessy Building.

In little more than a decade, entrepreneur Daniel Hennessy’s mercantile business became Montana’s first and most elegant department store. Minneapolis architect Frederick Kees designed the magnificent 1898 Renaissance Revival style showcase of steel, terra cotta, decorative glass, and wrought iron grille work to house Hennessy’s thriving business. The Anaconda Copper Mining Company added to the building’s prestige, moving its executive offices to the sixth floor in 1901. There the company reigned over its empire atop the city’s most modern building until 1977, when the Anaconda Company was acquired by Atlantic Richfield (ARCO) oil company. Façade restoration in 1989 by ENTECH, Inc., rejuvenated the building, which now serves as a major business center accommodating modern offices. Transom-level Luxfer glass panels focus light into the ground floor.

"The Sixth Floor" became a pejorative term for the Anaconda Company, known in mining towns and union halls across the United States in the early 1900s. 

Modified from historic plaque by Montana Historical Society. Historic photo (1979) by Jet Lowe, HABS/HAER, Library of Congress. Modern photo (detail) by Richard Gibson.

Butte Anaconda & Pacific Railway, General Offices, 300 West Commercial Avenue

City: Anaconda
Built: 1898
Map

The General Offices of the BA&P Railway formerly served as the passenger depot and dispatchers office for this rail operation. Built in 1898, the two-story brick structure has rusticated granite window lintels and sills with a continuous granite belt at the top and bottom of the second-story windows. The windows also feature overhead semicircular arch transoms. Dentilled and corbelled brickwork appears along the roofline at each building facade. The east end of the building has rounded corners, while a rectangular wing extends from the west end. The BA&P was incorporated October 1, 1892, and began hauling copper ore from the mines at Butte to the smelter at Anaconda by the close of 1893. The line also provided passenger service to Anacondans from this building location from the time of its construction until April 1955. Originally steam-powered, the BA&P Railway was, by 1916, the first fully electrified railroad in the United States, and the first heavy-haul electrified railroad in the world. In the 1960s, diesel locomotives replaced all the electric models.

Sources: Photo by Jet Lowe (HABS/HAER, c. 1979, from Library of Congress; public domain). Text modified from HABS/HAER documentation, Monica Hawley, historian. Reference: Wired for Success: The BA&P Railway, 1892-1985, by Charles V. Mutschler (Washington State University Press, 2002).

814 West Granite

By Richard I. Gibson

Built: c. 1898
Map

This miner’s cottage is typical of the style common on Butte’s West Side. Square footage is about 1,250, and there is a basement. Class distinction is evident on West Granite Street, with little homes like this one on the south side of a street (facing north) and mansions and mini-mansions on the north side where they could catch the warm winter sun. This was Myron Brinig’s home in the early 1900s.

Myron Brinig was born in Minneapolis in 1896 and lived in Butte about 1897-1914. He began his career as a writer in New York City in 1918, and moved to Hollywood as screenwriter. He lived in Taos, New Mexico from 1934-77, and died in New York at age 94 in 1991. His best novels are about Butte and Montana’s turbulent years – Singermann, inspired by his father, a Jewish Romanian immigrant; Wide Open Town, about an Irish miner; and The Sisters, a Montana family story focused on the prosperous middle class. The grocery story at the corner of Alabama and Granite (now apartments), a block from the Brinig home, served as the setting for much of the novel The Sisters, made into a 1938 film starring Bette Davis and Errol Flynn.

See also this Butte History blog post.

Photo by Richard Gibson

321 West Broadway (Charles Walker Clark Mansion)

Built: 1898
Architect: Will Aldrich
Map
Web Site

The eldest son of copper king William Clark built this twenty-six-room mansion for his bride, Katherine Quinn Roberts, in 1898. Massachusetts architect Will Aldrich reputedly modeled the residence after a French chateau the couple visited while honeymooning in Europe in 1896. The exterior features patterned brick enhanced by gray limestone, steep slate-covered roofs, and circular turrets. Yale-educated Charles spared no expense on details: exquisite stained glass, hand-painted wallpaper, a stately curved stairway, and the use of many kinds of rare woods reveal the work of talented craftsmen. The building is owned by the city and county of Butte-Silver Bow.

The chateau is independently listed on the National Register, as compared to automatic listing by virtue of being a contributing element of the Butte-Anaconda National Historic Landmark District (about 6,000 properties in Butte-Anaconda are National Register listed). 


From historic plaque by Montana Historical Society. Photos by Richard Gibson.

209-213 North Idaho Street

By Richard I. Gibson

Architect: Charles M. Prentice
Built: c. 1898
Map 

These three attached Italianate homes step up Idaho Street, reflecting a common accommodation to Butte’s topography. The middle unit upstairs (211½) was home to Butte Police Chief of Detectives Ed Morrissey, implicated in the murder of Frank Little in 1917. Morrissey probably murdered his wife here in 1919, and died in his bed here in 1922 of injuries suffered in a fight. The brick buildings were erected before 1900, probably about 1898.


Photo by Richard Gibson

301 North Crystal

By Richard I. Gibson

Architect: Charles Prentice
Built: 1898
Map

301 North Crystal was built in 1898 by prominent architect Charles M. Prentice. He was initially in business with Joseph S. Chevigny, but worked on his own later. He became mill foreman for the M.J. Connell Lumber Co. in 1895. The Prentice family briefly left Montana for California in 1899, but they returned by 1900, and Charles, his wife Celia, daughter Lula, and son George were at home here at 301 N. Crystal until at least 1906. Prentice also lived at 600 W. Quartz, next door to 301 N. Crystal, and at 208 N. Clark (formerly Columbia Street). He was known for his homes and apartment buildings with “inventive corbelling and interesting fenestration patterns.” Other examples of Prentice’s work are 206-212 N. Clark and row houses at 209 N. Idaho. Prentice also designed the east wing, bay, and porch for the M.J. Connell house at 301 W. Granite St. 

The original polygonal wood frame structure is largely unchanged. Alternating panels of full and half windows include beveled, etched, and stained glass in some of the half windows. Stained glass is also found in three upstairs transom windows, as well as in a basement door. Interior wood is mostly painted wood grain, although some has been overpainted. There are decorative brackets under the eaves of the flat roof, and a short hipped roof provides a modification to the typical flat-roofed Italianate style, a variation that is rare in Butte. The garage is probably not original, but is a relatively early addition likely dating to the 1910s to 1920s. The house is set into mine tailings derived from the Silver King mine shaft that was located to the north, where Cheyenne Park is today. Tailings can be seen in the basement in the wall beneath the stairs.

The house was home to the Panisko family from 1950-2003. Owner Frank Panisko was a retired circus clown, working with Emmett Kelly at the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus. In Butte, he worked as a pump operator at the Leonard Mine. Some long-time Butte residents refer to the home as the "Clown House" because of Panisko's connection with the circus. He had a booth at Columbia Gardens and at festivals in Butte for many years.

Prior to the Panisko family, residents included

• Larkin (painter) and Velva Bunch, 1940
• John B. and Mary Dillon, 1930. John was a mechanic at J.T. Carlson's auto repair shop at 215 S. Main
• Edward P. and Viola Taylor, and Walter and Abba Holliday, 1928. Edward was an assistant secretary at the U.S. Building and Loan Association, and Walter was a shift boss at the Black Rock Mine.

Status: Contributing

Year Built: 1898

Year Lost: N/A

Style: Modified Italianate

Alt. name: The Clown House

Builder/Architect: Charles Prentice

Past Owner(s): Frank Panisko

Geocode: 01119713241300000

Lat: 46° 00' 53.87" N

Long: 112° 32' 40.02" W

Elevation: 5769'

Neighborhood: Plymouth Add.

Sources: Montana Historical & Architectural Inventory, 6-23-81, by Mary Murphy for SHPO; Polk City Directories. Photos by Richard Gibson.