220-224 N. Main (Chambers Block, Anaconda Company Pay Office)

By Linda Albright
Built: pre-1884
Map

In 1884-85 the building was occupied by Hoge Brownlee & Company Bank in the northwest corner of the first floor; the rest of the first floor contained W. R. Kenyon & Company Hardware & Mining Machinery. It had a stone basement with its own boiler in the southeast corner of the basement. The building was owned by Marcus Daly in the mid-1880s and later by Donahue & Moyer; in 1900, the Daly Bank & Trust Company owned and occupied the building. John D. Ryan was bank president and John R. Toole served as vice president. This is the location where Ryan, later president of the Anaconda Company as well as the Montana Power Company (see this link to his house) became acquainted with Marcus Daly. 

By 1908, this block was owned by and housed the Anaconda Copper Mining Company’s pay office. Also known as the Mines Office (first floor rear), it also contained the ACM purchasing department on the second floor. In later years, the telephone switchboard and operators were located on the second floor at the rear of the building.

By the 1950s, the ACM still used this building for offices, but the pay office had moved around the corner to the adjacent building to the east (18 E. Quartz St., at left in photo at top).

During the labor troubles of the 1910s, the pay office was dynamited Sunday, July 6, 1919. “Little damage was done,” according to the Engineering & Mining Journal, but the New York Times reported “an iron grating was blown against a building across the street, narrowly missing a street car heavily loaded with miners. The damage is estimated at $5,000.” Windows were broken in 6 nearby stores.

Sources: Architectural inventory; Engineering & Mining Journal, Vol. 108, no. 2; New York Times July 6, 1919; Sanborn maps. Photo by Richard I. Gibson.

304 North Main Street (Tuttle Building)

Built: 1892
Builder: J.C. Martin
Map 

1944

Shelley Tuttle began a Butte foundry and machine shop business in 1881. By 1890, the expanded Tuttle Manufacturing and Supply Company had a plant in Anaconda and employed twelve machinists, blacksmiths, molders, and pattern makers. Tuttle supplied parts and machinery for local mining operations, including the immense smelter works of Marcus Daly, who was a major stockholder in Tuttle’s company. In 1892, Tuttle built this business block as an outlet for his foundry products and to house an inventory of hardware goods. Tuttle was also agent for Ingersoll-Sargeant drills, Knowles steam pumps, and a wire rope company.

Butte builder J. C. Martin designed the three-story brick building with graceful brick arches and rusticated stone trim. Besides mining supplies and machinery, Tuttle’s foundry manufactured cast-iron storefronts and architectural ornamentation like the metal brackets that support the cornice displayed here. He also sold home furnishings and Garland stoves. Daly bought out the company in 1896 and changed its name to the Anaconda Copper Mining Company Hardware Department. Daly Bank and Trust owed the building for a time in the early 1900s.  The descendent of Tuttle’s foundry still operates in Anaconda today.

Interior office, 1944

By the 1940s, this was the General Office of the Anaconda Company, housing such offices as the Purchasing Department, Coal Sales, Hardware Dept., Auditing, Insurance, War Bonds and Payroll processing, the Duplicating Department, and Kenwood Realty, a division of the company that managed its rentals and collected mortgage payments on properties sold by the Company.  In 1944, the Anaconda Company leased equipment from the International Business Machine (IBM) Co. at a cost of more than $5,000 a month, enabling them to use more than 10,000,000 “tabulating cards” that could produce paychecks at a rate of 18 per minute in this building, for distribution at the Mines Office (Pay Office) across the street to the south. The cards detailed 80 types of employee pay classifications and 700 contract pay rates.

The Montana Power Co. occupied the building in the 1970s.

More recently, the building has housed social welfare organizations including the Public Housing Authority, Butte Literacy Program, and Homeward Bound Community Health services.

Resources: Historic plaque by Montana Historical Society; architectural inventory; Copper Commando, vol. 2, no. 26, August 18, 1944: Digital Commons at Montana Tech. Historic photos probably by Copper Commando chief photographer Robert I. Nesmith; modern photo by Richard I. Gibson. Text from historic plaque with additions by Linda Albright and 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.