Grand Hotel (Wheeler Block)

By Richard I. Gibson

124 W. Broadway
Built: 1916-17
Map

The building known as the Grand Hotel began as a three-story labor temple in 1915-16, intended to be a meeting place for plumbers and other unions. To cover debts, the unions sold it to Butte lawyer and U.S. District Attorney (later U.S. Senator from Montana) Burton K. Wheeler, who added two stories by the time it was finished in 1917.

The façade is marked by terra cotta tiles and cornice, dressed stone columns, and decorative prism glass bricks in the transom level and in the central stair windows. Others managed the Grand Hotel for Wheeler for about 15 years until he sold it, but it continued as a hotel until 1989. A dance school conducted classes here in the early 1940s.

A promoter bought the Grand in 1989 and began to develop it as a boxing training center, with lodgings on the upper floors. In the summer of 1991 fireworks started a fire that was quickly controlled, but the following January a fire consumed most of the fifth floor and destroyed the roof. The building stood empty for about three years and reverted to the city-county of Butte-Silver Bow for unpaid taxes, and a new roof was installed. Various owners had it until 2011 when Chuck and Lyza Schnabel purchased the building and renovated the basement for the Quarry Brewery and tap room, which opened on Sept. 29, 2011. The ground floor was renovated in 2012-13. Plans for the upper floors include bed and breakfast, condos, and private usage.

Note: the photo above is from 2011 before three new store fronts were renovated on the ground floor.

Resources: Architectural inventory; Sanborn maps; Historic Uptown Butte, by John DeHaas, Jr. (1977). Photo by Richard I. Gibson. Text modified from write-up by Gibson in Butte CPR 2012 Dust-to-Dazzle tour guide.

121-127 W. Broadway

By Richard I. Gibson
Built: 1916
Map

This building originally contained three store fronts on the ground floor and five apartments upstairs. The Butte Miner newspaper used this building (mostly the middle office, 125 W. Broadway) as its primary corporate office, serving the larger, 5-story Miner Building to the east on Broadway, where editorial offices and presses were housed. The Miner had been at this location since 1902, but the 1902 structure here was replaced by this building in 1916. After W.A. Clark died in 1925, his son, W.A. Clark, Jr., fought the Anaconda Company and his own relatives for three years over ownership of the Butte Miner and other Clark assets. But by August 1928 he lost that struggle, and the Anaconda Standard took control of the Butte Miner. The new combined newspaper became the Montana Standard.

125 W. Broadway became home to the Goodyear Shoe Company, while 121 W. Broadway (right side in photo above) held Mother’s Way Bakeshop for many years in the 1920s and 1930s. The western storefront, 127, was a hairdressing salon. Later tenants included S. J. Perry’s first Uptown office in 1939 and the Christian Science Reading Room from about 1954 to 1981. An adult bookstore occupied the building from 1982 to 2012. The second level apartments (123 W. Broadway) contain interesting Craftsman-style columns in the main rooms, and to save space, beds roll out from under closets and bathrooms.

New owners as of 2012 have renovated the building, returning the ground floor to three store fronts and revitalizing the upstairs apartments. The stone front seen in the photo above dates to about the 1980s.

Resources: Architectural inventory, 1928 newspapers, Sanborn maps, city directories. Note that city directories assign various offices of Clark businesses (Timber Butte Mill, Elm Orlu Mining, Street Railway, and others) to this address, but they were actually in the Miner Building a half block east. The story of Montana's newspapers and their relationship to the Anaconda Company is told in Dennis Swibold's Copper Chorus (Montana Historical Society Press, 2006). Photo by Richard I. Gibson.

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.

Largey Flats (403-407 W. Broadway)

Built: c. 1895
Map 

Patrick A. Largey, Butte’s “fourth copper king,” got his start freighting goods into early-day Virginia City. After he settled in Butte, Largey’s many business interests included founding both the Inter-Mountain newspaper and the State Savings Bank. The Largey family, whose opulent mansion once stood next door on the corner, suffered a tragedy in 1898 when miner Thomas Riley murdered Largey at his bank. Riley had lost a leg in the cataclysmic 1895 explosion in Butte’s railroad yards that claimed 58 lives. Because Largey’s hardware company owned one of the buildings involved in the blast, Riley held Largey responsible for his injuries. The Largey family built these flats in the 1890s where many of Butte’s wealthier families stayed while looking for permanent housing. Built by contractor Moses Bassett, the stunning multi-family residence is styled after an Italian villa with tile roofs, portico, and arched entrances. Egg-and-dart moldings, corner window tiles, garland reliefs, and stained and beveled glass embellish the façade. Each of the three, two-story “townhouses” is exquisitely finished with rich wood wainscoting and an oak staircase.

The Largey home itself, much grander than Largey Flats, stood to the east until it burned down about 1965.

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

27 West Broadway (Butte Miner Building - Butte Floral Company)

Built: pre-1884; rebuilt 1906
Map 

The publisher of copper king W.A. Clark’s newspaper, the Butte Miner, used this space as a printing office from 1884. In 1906, Butte florist James King partly demolished the older structure and erected this unique two-story building.

The year 1906 marked the beginning of a new period of growth precipitated partly by a thriving copper industry and by freeing up of investor money as the legal battles of the War of the Copper Kings were largely ended. This optimism is mirrored in the architectural exuberance seen not only in Butte’s much grander buildings of the time, but in small businesses as well. The green-glazed brick and exotic Moorish revival arched windows provide an excellent example of this building trend, unique in Butte.

See also this Butte History blog post for an attempted murder connected with this building. Check this post for a report on the Miner Building, and this link for the small office building on West Broadway, which together replaced 27 W. Broadway as the Miner's offices and press room about 1901. 

Resources: Historic plaque by Montana Historical Society; Architectural inventory; Sanborn Maps; city directories. Modern photo by Richard I. Gibson; historic photo by Jet Lowe from HAER survey, 1979 (public domain via Library of Congress).

13 West Broadway

Built: pre-1884
Map

The stone foundation and masonry fabric of this early 1880s commercial building reflect the change to fireproof building materials after 1879, when a catastrophic fire destroyed most of Main Street. In 1884, the two-story building, like many of its neighbors, had multiple uses. A millinery shop occupied the first floor, the second floor housed a carpet warehouse, and the basement functioned as a dwelling.

By 1890, Thibault and Inghran ran a saloon on the premises, thereby establishing the building’s major commercial use that continues today. Blue and yellow tile highlight the 1930s ground-floor façade, which adds to the architectural history of this well-seasoned building. The upper-floor façade with its two front windows and decorative parapet preserves the building’s 1880s appearance.

(Note that the historic plaque indicates erroneously that this building is connected to the overpass visible in the alley. It is not. See this post.)

Resources: Historic plaque by Montana Historical Society; Architectural inventory; Sanborn Maps; city directories. Photo by Richard I. Gibson.

65 East Broadway (Thornton Block)

Built: 1901
Map

Beautifully detailed and thoroughly cosmopolitan, this $75,000 five-story hotel opened May 5, 1901 featuring over one hundred rooms, a saloon, restaurant, barber shop, and bowling alley. A cast-iron and glass entrance canopy, stone balconies, Tudor arches, and decorative carving highlight the elegant exterior. Turn-of-the-twentieth-century hotel patrons, no doubt impressed with Butte’s metropolitan character, could even take an electric street railway direct to Sutton’s Broadway Theater. After 1947, the Thornton Block served for many years as a club for Anaconda Copper Mining Company employees. In 2013, this office building also houses Montana’s supercomputer in the basement, where the heat generated by the electronic equipment provides significant energy savings, making this one of the greenest historic buildings in the state.

In 1914, room 207 in the Thornton was the Headquarters Office of the Montana Equal Suffrage Association, with Jeanette Rankin as Chairman. (See the Women's History Tour on HistoryPin.)


President Theodore Roosevelt attended a banquet here in 1903, and Booker T. Washington stayed here in 1913.

Text modified from historic plaque by Montana Historical Society. See also Historic Uptown Butte, by John DeHaas, 1977, p. 52-53 (error in reporting Roosevelt’s visit as 1908; it was 1903). Photo by Richard Gibson.

Finlen Hotel

100 East Broadway
Built: 1923
Architect: Shanley and Baker
Map
Web Site

The decade following World War I brought an excess of copper to the world market and Butte suffered a severe economic slowdown. The Finlen Hotel and the Fox (Mother Lode) Theater were the only two substantial structures built in Butte’s business district during the 1920s. New Year’s Day, 1924, marked the opening of this grand hotel modeled in miniature after New York City’s Hotel Astor, a twin-tower building. Because of the economic downturn, the Finlen’s second (eastern) tower was never completed.
The nine-story hotel with a French Second Empire mansard roof was designed by architects Shanley and Baker and constructed by Butte builder Albert Broadland. James Finlen, son of wealthy mining pioneer Miles Finlen, financed the building. In 2013, two floors in the historic hotel are available for travelers, while the rest of the building is residential apartments.

A hotel stood on this corner for many years. The first, the three-story McDermott, was erected in 1889. It was purchased in 1902 and renamed the Finlen; the original hotel was demolished in 1923 to make way for the present building. Rooms rented for $2.50 a night in 1948. Guests in this hotel have included Charles Lindbergh, Mrs. Herbert Hoover, Harry Truman, then Senator John F. Kennedy, and then Vice-President Richard Nixon.

Text modified from historic plaque by Montana Historical Society. Additional resource: Finlen Hotel.  Photo by Richard Gibson.

Mantle Block

Mantle Block at left.

14-20 West Broadway
Built: 1892
Architect: Henry Patterson
Map
Present Use: Piccadilly Museum of Transportation

Prominent politician Lee Mantle had this impressive four-story masonry building constructed during 1892, the year he was elected mayor of Butte. Architect H. M. Patterson designed the commercial-residential structure, which incorporates a wealth of decorative architectural forms popular at the time. The curved corner turret and the mixing of stone and brick on the façade reflect Patterson’s distinctive eclectic style. Griffins and scrolls on the capitals between the third and fourth floors enhance the lively treatment of the façade. Remodeling in 1916 to accommodate the building’s long-time occupant, the Liberty Theater, somewhat altered the original storefronts, but fragments of decorative plaster within recall this former use.

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

First Baptist Church

Baptist Church (foreground); Presbyterian Church in left background.

201 West Broadway
Built: 1907
Architect: Charles Passmore & Co.
Map

In 1882, the Baptists established their first church in Butte, a frame structure reportedly moved into Butte from Rochester, a mining camp on the southern flank of the Highland Mountains northwest of Twin Bridges. It stood on the site of the present church. By 1890, membership numbered 65 and steadily grew until, at 450 members in 1905, new quarters were imperative. The following year marked the beginning of an unprecedented commercial building boom, and the Butte Miner reported on June 17, 1906, that the week would “…witness the beginning of several splendid structures not exactly in the business heart of the city.”

Nearing completion, Dec. 1907

One of these new buildings was the impressive First Baptist Church, designed and built by Charles Passmore & Company at a cost of $25,000 and dedicated April 12, 1908. Triple-arched windows with beautiful stained glass highlight the main tower, whose pyramidal roof dignifies the neighborhood. Comparison of this church and the nearby Mountain View Methodist Church reveals distinct similarities, but window placement and architectural detailing make each unique.

Ford Brothers Glass Co. of Minneapolis fabricated the large round stained glass window on the east side, an example of trace and matte techniques typical of the Munich School of stained glass. Ovals in the south window are opalescent glass.

Modified from historic plaque by Montana Historical Society; additional resource: First Baptist Church, by Richard Gibson, in Historic Stained Glass in selected houses of worship, Butte, Montana, published by Butte Citizens for Preservation and Revitalization, 2006; Butte Miner, Dec. 22, 1907 (historic photo). Modern photo by Richard Gibson.

58 West Broadway (Independent Order of Odd Fellows)

IOOF Hall at left.

Built: 1884
Map

Fraternal organizations were an important facet of most mining towns and helped establish social and civic stability in early communities. Members of Fidelity Lodge #8 constructed this meeting hall, one of the district’s oldest standing buildings, in 1884. The building’s dual function, with second-story meeting rooms and first-floor commercial space, is typical of the period.

Cornerstone, IOOF Hall

The lively façade, enhanced with intricate prefabricated details, directly reflects the impact of the railroad upon Butte’s architectural landscape. Ready-made elements such as the cast-iron storefront with scrolled columns and Corinthian capitals, metal cornice with decorative brackets, and floral-patterned window hoods were shipped by rail, linking Butte to national architectural trends.

Minor repairs were conducted in 1898 (joist work) and 1908 (glass front replacement). The letters "IOOF" are mounted upon the metalwork cornice.

See also this Butte History blog post.

From historic plaque text by Montana Historical Society. Additional resource: Historic Uptown Butte, by John deHaas, 1977. Photos by Richard Gibson.

15-19 West Broadway (Mantle / Henderson & Bielenberg Building)

The M&B Block housed Khoury and Co. in 1939.

Built: c. 1890
Map

A graceful semicircular arched entry of rough quarried stone is a striking feature of this three-story commercial/residential building that once housed the publisher of the Butte Miner. Built circa 1890 by pioneer stockman and financier N. J. Bielenberg, the first floor was remodeled in 1891 to accommodate the publishing company. By 1900, Western Union Telegraph occupied the first floor, offices were on the second floor, and the third floor contained a lodging house and a recreation hall. Many of Butte’s unions met in this building. A sign on the building’s east side advertises the Creamery Cafe, a longtime favorite eatery and later tenant. Exceptional interior finishings include a beautiful tin ceiling, an open stairwell with a skylight above, maple floors, and varnished pine woodwork. The grand cast iron, brick, and stone façade with its repetitive arch motif is today a substantial reminder of Butte’s Victorian-era prosperity.

See also these three Butte History blog posts.

Text modified from historic plaque by Montana Historical Society. Photo from Library of Congress (public domain) by Arthur Rothstein, 1939.

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.

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.

Butte City Hall, 24 E. Broadway

 

By Richard I. Gibson
       
Built: 1890. In use: 1890-1971.
Map

Butte’s exploding population – from about 4,000 in 1880 to 23,000 in 1890 – demanded bigger and better buildings for everything. This is Butte’s second city hall, replacing the 1884 structure at 116 W. Park (now the Jail House Coffee Shop). Mayor Henry Mueller, also an officer of the Centennial Brewery, oversaw the construction of this building. The jail was known as the “Butte Bastille” for its dungeon-like character. No temperature regulation meant that the inmates suffered temperatures ranging from 100°F and more adjacent to the building’s boiler behind the drunk tank, to chilly discomfort in the more distant cells. North of the furthest cells (“dungeon” and “interrogation cell”) police offices occupied the sub-sidewalk space on the north side of the city hall, visible through the hole in the Interrogation Cell. The ceilings in those offices, and in the dungeon, consist of ranks of bricks laid on a metal lattice frame.

Mortared unshaped granite boulders comprise much of the foundation, best seen at the corner of the long hallway along the cells.

The main level of the city hall originally held the fire department. The large arches adjacent to the front entrance on Broadway Street were doors through which horse-drawn fire wagons passed in response to calls. By 1900, an additional dedicated fire station had been built (today’s Archives building, 17 W. Quartz) to help attack the all-too-frequent fires that plagued the city despite a 29-page building ordinance enacted in 1893 that mandated brick and stone construction for most business blocks. The clock tower has been lowered by one section from its original height.

The jail was in use until 1971, when a suspicious (murder? suicide?) death by hanging at the shower stall compelled a decision to begin using the county jail (north of the county courthouse; currently the sheriff’s department offices), which was just 20 years younger but much more modern. The upper floors of the city hall were abandoned in 1977 when the governments of the city and county were merged and all operations moved to the county courthouse on Granite Street. The adaptive reuse of the building as a doctor’s office dates to 1999.

Photo by Richard Gibson.

Hamilton Block, 45 West Broadway Street

By Richard I. Gibson

Architect: Henry M. Patterson
Built: 1892
Status: ground floor for lease (2013); upper floors vacant
Map

Built for businessman Patrick J. Hamilton, this 52’x100’ three-story brick structure served typical Butte functions: stores on the first floor and lodgings above. The building replaced a pair of two-story restaurants at the corner of Utah (previous name of Hamilton Street) and Broadway, and a Chinese store at 49 W. Broadway.

The iron store-front columns were cast by Montana Iron Works of Butte, located on the edge of Chinatown at 213-215 South Main when the Hamilton was erected. The tin cornice is one of the longest cornices surviving in Butte. Exterior stone sills, lintels, and keystones are likely Butte granite.

The first floor has been somewhat remodeled. Three businesses—from the corner to the west, a saloon, a store, and a restaurant—originally occupied the Broadway Street front, and the hotel entrance was at the middle of the building’s east front on Hamilton Street (the entry archway survives). The first floor was a café prior to occupancy by the antique store, which moved out in 2012. Upper floors are largely intact, though deteriorating, and retain original woodwork and open skylight. Gold leaf formerly decorated picture molding on the third floor.

Photo by Richard Gibson.