931 Caledonia

931 Caledonia at right; 935-39 at left.

Built: 1900
Map 

Miner John Trevithick worked at the Leonard Mine in Meaderville when he built this one-story brick home in 1900. Such five-room, L-shaped dwellings provided affordable, attractive residences for many Butte miners. Front polygonal bays and mass-produced decorative detailing provided visual interest to the small Queen Anne style cottages. Trevithick stayed here only briefly before selling the house to longtime residents Fred and Clara Rowe, who lived here into the 1950s. Like Trevithick, Fred Rowe also worked in the copper industry, but mostly he managed to stay above ground. He was a storekeeper at the B and B Smelter when he and his wife purchased the residence in 1905. In later years, he worked as a foreman at the precipitation plant, where crews recovered copper from water pumped out of the mines. The Rowes, who raised three children in this home, added the second story in 1909. The addition's exposed rafters reflect the Craftsman style, which was fast replacing Queen Anne in popularity.

See also this Butte History post about the Hancock family.

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

118-122 North Montana (The Concord)

Built: 1900
Map 

Two stories and a daylight basement provided ample room for the many lodgers that lived comfortably in this spacious turn-of-the-twentieth-century rooming house. The building’s first owner, boilermaker Carl M. Swanson, lived here with this wife, Tessie, who managed The Concord between 1901 and 1907. Under a tenant proprietor in 1910, census records show forty-one residents of varied backgrounds, ranging from professionals (including a dentist, a newspaper editor, and several business managers) to clerks and The Concord’s domestic employees.

While many of Butte’s residential flats and walkups reflect similar architectural styles, The Concord’s magnificent appearance is unique to the business district. A rough-quarried stone foundation and handsome stone trim contrast sharply with dark red brick, making the building a district highlight. In the 1930s, some of The Concord’s furnished rooms were converted to ten apartments. These, along with nine individual rooms, remain today. The graceful arched entry still welcomes its residents to an elegant interior, where the original oak staircase with turned spindles and skylight above are grandly intact.

Text from historic plaque by Montana Historical Society. Photo by Richard I. Gibson.

111 North Montana (School District #1 Administration Building)

Built: 1920
Architect: William O’Brien
Map 

William A. O’Brien, architect of the Leonard Apartments and the Kelly and Hennessy mansions, designed this handsome building of brown brick veneer in 1919. In 1920, the offices of District #1 moved from their longtime quarters at Butte High School to the new facility. At that time, Superintendent W. E. Maddock administered twenty-four schools including the high school, a junior high school, an industrial school, seventeen elementary schools, and four ungraded rural schools. The 311 district employees, 286 of them women, served a total of 19,296 students.

This familiar Butte landmark, significant for its attractive architecture as well as its long service, well represents the solid foundations of Butte’s public school system. Doric columns and an eighteen-light transom frame the entrance, while glazed terra cotta finishes the multi-paned windows, cornice, and parapet. The building’s historic appearance extends to its well-maintained interior, which features the original plaster walls and oak trim.

Text from historic plaque by Montana Historical Society. Photo by Richard I. Gibson.

Quartz Street Fire Station

2008

17 West Quartz
Built: 1900
Map
Web Site (BSB Public Archives)

1901

A catastrophic fire in 1879 destroyed all evidence of Butte’s first commercial district. Wooden buildings were subsequently outlawed on Main Street, but even so, fire has altered the commercial landscape in every decade from 1879 to the present. This indispensable community fire hall, Butte’s second, completed in 1900, served as the Butte headquarters until the 1970s. The station, with its three garage bays, housed the fire chief and twenty-two men. A corrugated metal tower above the roof at the rear was used for hanging hoses.

Since 1981 the building has housed the Butte-Silver Bow Public Archives. Major renovation of the interior in 2009-10 and addition of a state-of-the-art archival vault to the east made the Archives among the finest in the United States, venue for more than 4,000 visitors per year researching their ancestors and other aspects of Butte history.

The fire station has been called one of the most haunted buildings in Butte. Before the 2010 renovation, the fire bells—disconnected for decades—could be heard to ring in the basement.

Text modified from historic plaque by Montana Historical Society. Additional references: The Haunting of Butte's Quartz Street Fire Station, by Ellen Baumler, in Montana, The Magazine of Western History, Vol 52, No 1, Spring 2002; and Souvenir history of the Butte Fire Department, by Peter Sanger, Chief Engineer, November 1901 (source of historic photo, scanned by Butte Public Library). Modern photo (2008) by Richard Gibson.

75-82 East Park

75-76 East Park (Ivanhoe Block) (at right in photo)
Built: 1905
Architect: George De Snell
Map

Lawyers Robert McBride and Patrick Talent originally owned this three-story commercial/residential building designed by architect George De Snell. Built in 1905, it was one of several brick buildings that replaced frame stores, liveries, and brothels formerly occupying the street. Charles Cutler’s barbershop and Joseph Boulet’s bakery were early tenants. In 1910, the two opened the Iona Pool & Billiard Hall where Butler continued to give haircuts and sell cigars; Boulet moved the bakery and Iona Cafe to Main Street in 1915. When fire severely damaged the building in 1913, architect De Snell made the repairs and remodeled all three floors. The three tall arched bays, beautiful brickwork, and ornately carved stone on the upper two floors remain intact.

78-82 East Park (Imperial Block) (at left in photo)
Built: 1900

The changing character of East Park Street is well documented in the history of this rooming house, built as an investment in 1900 by Abraham Wehl. By this time, Butte’s first red light district, located on the block in the 1870s and early 1880s, had been firmly re-established to the south on nearby Galena and Mercury Streets. Handsome business blocks like this one, which replaced dilapidated mining camp buildings, brought some measure of respectability.

Records show that residents at the Imperial were primarily miners and others who worked nearby but in 1910 under proprietress Mamie Smith, the fifty residents included nine prostitutes. Prohibition and reforms brought further change to the neighborhood evident by 1920 when Hugh Quinn, a family man with six children, was tenant landlord. His thirty-three roomers were all men (predominantly miners) or couples with children. Like most rooming houses of the time, second- and third-floor lodgings were arranged around a central skylight with ground-floor commercial space. The cast iron storefront, graceful upper-story arches, and decorative brickwork nicely represent turn-of-the-century Butte.

Texts modified from historic plaques by Montana Historical Society. Photo by Richard Gibson.

Mary MacLane House, 417-419 North Excelsior

 

By Mark Reavis
   
Built: before 1900
Status: Vacant, restoration in progress (2013)
Map

This typical bay-fronted flat was home to controversial Butte author Mary MacLane from about 1900-1909. The structure is largely intact with some modification, damage and deterioration. The front porch is original; the back porch was originally Y-shaped with two independent, two-story porches that had stairs leading to a central platform and then to the ground. The open back porches were enclosed and connected to each level about 1915, when the bath was installed. Designed in the manner of a typical four-unit walk-up flat, this home was constructed as a two-unit duplex with internal stairs. The duplex had a stacked upper and lower unit on the south and an upper and lower floor on the north; the latter was the MacLane home. Mary MacLane was 19 years old and living here in 1901 when she penned her famous diary, The Story of Mary MacLane. Shocking for its day, the diary expresses Mary’s eroticism and strange dreams with remarkable frankness. The book sold 100,000 copies in its first month and was cited by Ernest Hemingway and Gertrude Stein as an influence in their search for a new American writing style.

Many interior changes took place over the decades with the lower floor opened to connect the two original units, forming a first-floor single-family home. The interior stairs were removed but the two second-story units remained, turning the house into a 3-plex prior to the beginning of restoration work. The removal of the internal stairs was a unique form of birth control undertaken by the family—the father was relegated to the south upstairs apartment after supper with doors locked to eliminate his midnight visits and the resulting children. The northern second-floor unit was usually rented at a minimal cost to a handyman or family friend.

This building is not platform framed: its balloon-framed wood 2 x 4 studs are two stories high (or a bit more). It has 2 x 10 joists and a minimal attic with a relatively flat built-up asphalt roof sloped to drain to the back Leaking of the roof has been frequent. The home went through several rounds of tax default and repurchases at tax sales. One of the previous owners thought it would be nice to widen the narrow hallways upstairs by combining them and removed the central bearing wall, a problem that exacerbated the leaking roof. The building was offered and purchased on a county developer’s packet once; those owners defaulted and left town. Ownership returned to the county and it was offered through a second developer’s packet procedure and acquired by Butte historians at a cost of $500. Restoration work is being diligently performed by volunteers and as an internship for the Historic Preservation Technology Program at the College of Technology Program at Montana Tech of University of Montana. In 2012, Butte Citizens for Preservation and Revitalization granted $7,000 as a 50% match to replace the roof.

Photo by Richard Gibson