971 North Main Street (Trinity Methodist Church)

By Linda Albright

Built: 1896
Map 

Thousands of skilled miners from Cornwall, England, immigrated to the United States in the mid-nineteenth century as English tin and copper mines played out. Many settled in Butte’s working-class communities. Centerville was home to equal numbers of Cornish, who were mostly Methodists, and Catholics from Ireland. There were two sets of businesses and two churches—one serving each group. By 1884, Centerville’s Cornish residents had formed a Methodist congregation; in 1885 they met in a small frame building on East Center Street.  


During the pastorate of Rev. Joel Vigus, the Butte and Boston Mining Company donated the land and this church was built in 1889. Together with the 4-room parsonage, the church cost $4,000, including electric lights donated by U.S. Senator (1895-99) and former Butte mayor Lee Mantle. Workers added brick veneer, a vestibule, a choir room, and dug a basement to accommodate a fellowship hall; all the extra work added about $5,000 to the cost, and the church was finally dedicated in 1896. The original stained glass windows were presented by M.J. Connell, a prominent Butte store owner. More recent stained glass windows are all dedicated, including some as recent as 1955. Much of the glass is of the opalescent variety.

View of Trinity Methodist through window of Mountain Con Hoist House

An enduring Cornish tradition is the pasty, a meat pie in a pastry envelope. Carried underground in dinner pails, miners lovingly called it a “letter from ’ome.” Trinity’s fellowship hall hosted many pasty dinners. The simple Gothic style “miner’s church” (in contrast to the “mine owners church, Mountain View) with its sturdy central tower recalls the Cornish miners and their families, far from home, who worshiped here.

Resources: Historic plaque by Montana Historical Society; Historic Stained Glass in selected houses of worship, Butte, Montana, by Richard I. Gibson and Irene Scheidecker (Butte CPR, 2006). Photos by Richard I. Gibson (the photo through the cracked Mountain Con window won an honorable mention in the National Park Service National Historic Landmarks photo contest in 2007-8, and was published as the 13th month in their 2009 calendar).

1306 North Main Street (St. Lawrence O'Toole Church)

By Linda Albright

Built: 1897
Present use: tours and special events • Preservation new story
Map

Bishop Brondel Xavier Batens created Butte’s second Catholic parish, St. Lawrence O’Toole, in March 1897. Initially, services were held in the Hibernia Hall in Centerville on West Center Street, just west of Main Street, in a building that no long stands. The church was constructed with $25,000 raised by miners’ subscription on land donated by the Butte and Boston Mining Company, the Gothic Revival style church was completed that year in time for Christmas Day mass. Eventually, the church served 5,000 mostly Irish parishioners in the Walkerville/Centerville area. When the church was dedicated in 1898, Bishop Brondel referred to it as "a church of workingmen. There is not a rich man in the congregation. The church was paid for by the small contributions of the poor people." The intensely Irish nature of the church was reflected by its relationship with the radical Robert Emnet Literary Association (RELA), which supported the Irish rebellion. The church drama club asked for, and received, RELA rifles to use in the Christmas play in 1907. By 1910, the St. Lawrence O'Toole had 302 families, with 137 of them headed by widows.

Although a central steeple has been removed, the wood-frame building remains an excellent example of period ecclesiastical architecture, featuring exquisite fresco paintings (circa 1906) on its interior wood-beamed ceiling. The exterior was painted white in the 1960s for the filming of an episode of the television series “Route 66.”The St. Lawrence has been decommissioned as a church, and is now owned by the City of Walkerville, which opens it occasionally for tours and special occasions.

The associated St. Lawrence Catholic School is located at 1226½ N. Main Street, behind the church.  It was built in 1904 and owned by the St. Lawrence O’Toole Catholic Church.  The outside walls are still standing.

Resources: Historic plaque by Montana Historical Society; The Butte Irish, by David Emmons. Exterior photo by Linda Albright; interiors by Richard Gibson.

St. Paul’s Methodist Episcopal Church

By Richard I. Gibson

101 S. Idaho
Built: 1899
Architect: William White
Map 

Click images to enlarge

1905

1901

Noted architect William White designed this majestic, multi-gabled church of stone and brick, built at a cost of $10,000 in 1899. Gothic lancet windows, stained glass, Romanesque arches, and wood tracery in the gable windows showcase White’s meticulous attention to fine detail. A steeple above the entry and pyramidal roof once crowned the two corner towers, visible in the 1905 sketch. Architect White was in partnership with A. Werner Lignell in 1900; their offices were in the Silver Bow Block (the old one, where the parking lot stands today just west of Main on Granite Street). In 1901 White’s independent office was in the Bee Hive Building on East Broadway (part of the NorthWestern Energy buildings today) and he was living at 1035 Caledonia.

1918

1918

By 1918, the church was owned by mortician (and later Silver Bow Sheriff) Larry Dugan, a sympathizer with the incendiary Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). The building then housed the Butte Daily Bulletin (later known as the Butte Strike Bulletin), a radical newspaper voicing policies of the anti-Anaconda Nonpartisan League, published by William F. Dunne. On September 13, 1918, local police and federal troops under Major Omar N. Bradley raided the Bulletin, arresting twenty-four men and thwarting a miners’ strike.

It is likely but not certain that the stained glass windows were fabricated by the Butte Art Stained Glass Works. By 2013, the windows had been covered to help protect them, and in 2015, Uptown Works received a $5,000 grant from the Montana History Foundation to restore them.


In later years, Larry Dugan operated his mortuary here, and more recently Beverly Hayes ran a bridal shop in the building. The owner today is slowly restoring it.

Resources: Historic plaque by Montana Historical Society (the plaque says the raid took place on Sept. 14, but it was actually on the 13th); architectural inventory in Butte Archives; Sanborn maps; city directories (White advertisement, 1901); Butte Miner Dec. 17, 1905 (sketch with steeple); Butte Post Sept. 16, 1918 (Bradley photo); Butte Miner Sept. 14-16, 1918 (news article). Modern photos by Richard I. Gibson.

Caplice & McCune Store, 1607 N. Main, Walkerville

By Richard I. Gibson

Built: pre-1884

Map 

Once among the largest commercial buildings in Walkerville, this building was built before September 1884 by John Caplice and Alfred McCune to house one of their general stores and groceries, to serve Walkerville at a time when its population was about 900, with another 1,000 or more likely in the immediate vicinity beyond the town limits.

For more on Caplice and Company, please see these three Butte History articles. 

In 1900, the building was serving as St. Joseph’s Catholic School, with Revered Francis Batens in charge. Sister Mary Cecilia was the “superioress,” and the school had seven teachers in 1904. St. Joseph's school relocated to California and First Street by 1908, to be nearer St. Joseph's church. By 1906, this building was in the hands of the Methodists, used as Mt. Bethel Methodist Episcopal Church—they moved from 123 Clark in Walkerville. The pastor lived in a separate section in the rear, which is part of the original 1884 building. The Mt. Bethel congregation was organized in 1884, and in 1910 it had 40 members (compare Mountain View Methodist at 400 members in 1910). This space continued to serve as Mt. Bethel church until 1972. Since then, it has been used sporadically for various purposes, including fireplace hearth manufacture.

The brick is laid in American bond. The building has a stone basement and is vacant in 2013. The lancet windows are likely early renovations dating to its use as a parochial school or the church. The address here is sometimes given as 1609 N. Main. 

Resources: Sanborn Maps, Architectural Inventory, City Directories. Photo by Richard I. Gibson.

First Church of Christ, Scientist (229 North Montana)

229 N. Montana
Built: 1920
Architect: Walter Arnold
Map

Christian Science was a young religion when believers first gathered in a private Butte home in 1893; according to church teachings, Mary Baker Eddy discovered this system of prayer-based healing in 1866. The congregation grew rapidly, and Butte’s First Church of Christ, Scientist, formally incorporated in 1911. Church members purchased a brick house on this site in 1914 and launched plans to build a new church two years later. In 1920 the congregation broke ground for its new edifice; increasing membership led it to expand the building in 1929.

Prominent Butte architect Walter Arnold designed the Neoclassical building, which cost almost $100,000, all raised locally. The 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago had popularized Neoclassicism just at the moment that Christian Scientists began building permanent houses of worship. Thus, Neoclassicism became the denomination’s style of choice. Modern auditoriums designed for utmost comfort, large foyers to encourage sociability, symmetrical façades, and prominent porticos supported by classical columns were church hallmarks. Neoclassicism’s association with “beauty, harmony, and unity” suited the church’s ideology. The style also asserted permanence, a factor particularly important for the young religion.

This corner was occupied by a large, bay-fronted mansion built before 1884 and expanded by 1888. By 1916, the Christian Science church occupied that house prior to building the church that stands here now.

Source: historic plaque by Montana Historical Society; Sanborn maps. Photo by Richard I. Gibson.

Mountain View Methodist Episcopal Church (301 North Montana)

301 North Montana
Built: 1899
Architect: Link and Donovan
Map 

Rev. Hugh Duncan, a circuit-riding minister, led Butte's first Methodist Episcopal services in 1873. A dance hall, and later a school, served the early congregation. W.A. Clark was president of the original board of trustees for the previous church built on this prominent corner in 1883. Clark later became identified with St. John’s Episcopal Church.

As Butte grew, that wood structure soon became overcrowded. Rev. W. W. Van Orsdel ("Brother Van”) helped lay the cornerstone for this grand church July 22, 1899. William L. Donovan and John G. Link were the architects of the $25,000 building. Link rose to prominence and later helped design the wings of Montana's state capitol.

The church, completed in 1900, features a regal central tower with two arched entries. Magnificent stained glass richly embellishes the triple-arched windows on the south, north, and east. The sanctuary's semicircular arrangement and slanted floor, reminiscent of period opera houses, hosted some memorable community events. Famous speakers included social reformer Jacob Riis in 1906 and saloon-smasher Carrie Nation in 1910. Among Butte's eight Methodist churches, Mountain View was the "mine owners' church." Mountain View has hosted multiple choirs over the years, utilizing one of the most spectacular organs in the Pacific Northwest, installed in 1949 at a cost of $12,000.

The stained glass here was very likely manufactured by the Butte Art Glass Works, although the windows are not signed. Their textured surfaces, created by “rough rolling,” are typical of the Butte factory, and were intended to give depth and increased scattering of light. Two more recent windows were made by J&R Lamb Studios of New York.

Resources: Modified from historic plaque by Montana Historical Society; Historic Stained Glass in Selected Houses of Worship, Butte, Montana, published by Butte Citizens for Preservation and Revitalization, 2006, Mountain View Methodist Church, by Richard Gibson; Architectural inventory; Sanborn Maps; city directories. Photo by Richard I. 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.

Grace Methodist Episcopal Church

By Richard I. Gibson

939 South Arizona
Built: 1889
Map

The Grace Methodist Episcopal congregation was organized in 1888 to serve South Butte, although a mission in South Butte had begun about 1879. They erected their church on the northwest corner of Arizona and Second Streets in 1889. Montana's second state governor, John Rickards (served 1893-97), was on Grace's initial board of directors. In 1910, membership was 140 under Pastor W.H. Pascoe, who lived at the church.

Over time, the address scheme changed here, from the 200 block of Arizona when it referred to the separate community of South Butte, to 945 and 939 South Arizona after the address became part of the Butte grid. The original 1889 church was significantly expanded and modified in 1902, including the addition of the corner spire.

Reformer Carrie Nation spoke here during her Butte visit in January 1910. Grace was one of the churches where Mrs. Nation did “a land-office business” selling her books and hatchet pins, although when she was on the streets of Butte and in saloons, her welcome was more ridicule than enthusiasm. After her lecture at the Grace Church, she marched up Arizona Street to the red-light district where she pleaded with working girls to give up their “life of shame,” but she left the A.B.C. Saloon (corner of Wyoming and Mercury) to the orchestra playing “What The Hell Do We Care.”

In 2013, the church is vacant and privately owned, with restoration in the offing.

Resources: Anaconda Standard and Butte Miner, January 26-29, 1910; Sanborn Maps; City Directories; Methodism on the Richest Hill on Earth, by Mike Parr. Photo by Richard Gibson.

Emanuel Lutheran Church

300 South Montana
Built: 1916
Map

Immigrants to Butte during the mining boom often lived, socialized, and worshiped with fellow nationals. Swedish Lutherans first congregated in 1896, and in 1901 they built a small wooden chapel on the back of this lot. They quickly outgrew the building, which was a mattress factory when it burned in 1937. In 1912, the congregation, which kept its early records in Swedish, began construction of this brick church at a cost of $15,000. It was completed and dedicated in 1916.

Modest compared to neighboring St. Mark’s (a German Lutheran church), Emanuel Lutheran’s most prominent feature is its octagonal spire, which rests on a wooden tower ornamented with pinnacles and projecting gables. The steep pitch of the gables, lancet-arched tracery windows, and diagonal buttresses capped with contrasting sandstone trim all mark the church’s design as Gothic Revival. Butte Unity Truth Center, a nondenominational Christian church, purchased the building in 1958 when Emanuel Lutheran followed its congregants to the flats. By then Emanuel Lutheran no longer exclusively served Swedes; its days as an immigrant church—bringing comfort to worshipers far from home—were over. The Unity Center continues to use the building in 2013.

Modified from historic plaque text by Montana Historical Society. Photo by Richard Gibson.

327 West Galena Street (B'nai Israel Temple)

Built: 1903-04
Map

Butte’s ethnic diversity is well represented in this beautiful synagogue, dedicated February 26, 1904. The Butte Jewish community dates to 1875, and Butte’s first mayor, Henry Jacobs, was Jewish. Jacobs immigrated to the U.S. from Germany in the 1850s, fought for the South in the Civil War, made his way north in the 1860s, and was elected mayor in 1879.

After the Jewish community split into one reform and two orthodox groups, this temple was built for use by the reform congregation; the orthodox congregations continued for a few years but were ultimately disbanded. The three-story masonry building features a corner bell tower with an onion dome roof, an ornately corbelled front gable with rosette window beneath, and semicircular brick arches. This is the oldest synagogue in Montana still in use as a synagogue (the one in Helena is slightly older, but no longer serves as a house of worship) and this is one of only a few synagogues in the United States still in use that has the Moorish (onion-dome) architecture. Prior to its construction in 1903-04, the group worshiped in the Carpenter’s Union Hall and at the Mountain View Methodist Church.

The land was provided to the Jewish community in 1885 by the Northern Pacific Railway. Stained glass windows commemorate Elias and Mina Oppenheimer, German immigrants whose sons Joseph and Henry were partners with George Symons in Symons’ Dry Goods, a store that eventually became one of Butte’s most important department stores.

Resources: Historic plaque by Montana Historical Society; Congregation B’nai Israel Temple, by Richard Gibson, in Historic Stained Glass in selected houses of worship, Butte, Montana, published by Butte Citizens for Preservation and Revitalization, 2006. Photos by Richard Gibson.

St. Patrick's Roman Catholic Church

329 West Mercury
Built: 1882
Map

Butte’s early Catholic community established a mission in Butte in 1866, and the first parish church, a temporary wooden structure, was built west of this site in 1879. Father John Dols, the first pastor, arrived in the spring of 1881. The following year the cornerstone for a new church was laid, and formal dedication of St. Patrick’s took place in 1884. Two one-story wings were added to the original central portion in 1896, shaping the structure to its present appearance. Although exterior remodeling in the late 1940s has somewhat altered St. Patrick’s original façade, the graceful spire and elegant Gothic arches reflect its original design. Most of the stained glass was replaced in the 1940s renovation.

The parish had 2,500 parishioners by 1885, and was at 10,000 in 1901. 

Modified from historic plaque by Montana Historical Society; additional resource: St. Patrick’s, in Historic Stained Glass in selected houses of worship, Butte, Montana, by Irene Scheidecker, published by Butte Citizens for Preservation and Revitalization, 2006. Photo by Richard Gibson.

Shaffer Chapel

By Richard I. Gibson

Built 1901
602 S. Idaho at Platinum
Map

Shaffer Chapel was reportedly a gift to the African-American community from W.A. Clark. It was the second home to the African Methodist Episcopal congregation in Butte. That group built its first church at Idaho and Mercury (where the fire station is today) in 1892, but after they moved to Shaffer Chapel, the original building became home to the Baptist Bethel Church which also served African-Americans.

The building was vacant in 1951 but in recent years has been used as a day care center and as a church.

See also this Butte History blog post on Booker T. Washington.

Photo by Richard Gibson

Immaculate Conception Roman Catholic Church

Caledonia at Western Street
Built: 1939-41
Architect: John Link
Map

The Immaculate Conception (I.C.) parish was established in 1906, but the parish school was built first, and the school’s basement served as the church for more than 30 years. Monsignor Joseph Willging, second pastor, spearheaded the fundraising—during the Depression—that led to construction of the church at a cost of $200,000. It was dedicated August 31, 1941.

Stained glass in the I.C. church is unique in Butte. Much of it is in the Norman slab glass style, created by blowing molten glass into a rectangular, bread-loaf shaped mold. The cooled glass is spilt into five pieces, each of which has a much thicker center than edges, making for beautiful color tone variations.

The cross in the eastern window contains a different style of stained glass. Originally, clear glass bricks comprised the cross, but the morning light blinded the priest facing that direction, so the original glass was replaced in a style called dalle-de-verre (French meaning “paving stone of glass”). Angular glass pieces are faceted and set into a stone-like matrix of concrete or epoxy.

In addition to windows with religious themes, the I.C. church stained glass commemorates organizations such as the Catholic Youth Organization and Boy Scouts. Montana history is found as well, with stained glass designs for the Great Seal of the State of Montana and the first mission church in Montana, St. Mary Mission built in 1841 in present-day Stevensville. The first Native American proposed for canonization, Kateri Tekakwitha, is also honored in the Montana Window.

The I.C. church spire is a prominent landmark just below Big Butte, and visible from most parts of the area.

Resource: I.C. Church, by Irene Scheidecker, in Historic Stained Glass in selected houses of worship, Butte, Montana, published by Butte Citizens for Preservation and Revitalization, 2006.

Photos by Richard Gibson.

St. John’s Episcopal Church, 15 N. Idaho

By Richard I. Gibson

Built: 1881. Restored 1918-21, enlarged 1936.
Map

Faced in Butte granite, this church is the oldest standing church in Butte, predating St. Patrick’s Roman Catholic Church by one year although the latter is the oldest religious community in town, initiated in 1866 as a mission. St. John’s is closely connected to Copper King W.A. Clark, whose mansion is just a block north. The parish hall and basement gymnasium were added in 1917. For three years after a 1918 fire gutted the interior, services were held in the parish hall, and not until 1931 was the stained-glass window behind the altar restored. That window was executed by Pompeo Bertini, stained-glass artist for the Cathedral of Milan, Italy, and is dedicated to Clark’s daughter Jessie, who died three weeks before her third birthday in 1878. The restoration of the window was paid for by Clark’s son William A., Jr., and Jessie’s twin sister, Catherine. Additional expansions have included enlarging the chancel and adding the chapel in 1936. Most of the stained glass in the side windows was manufactured by J & R Lamb Studios, of New York and New Jersey, and includes mining and patriotic motifs in addition to traditional religious imagery.

Reference: Historic stained glass in selected houses of worship, Butte, Montana, by R.I. Gibson and Irene Scheidecker, published by Butte Citizens for Preservation and Revitalization, 2006. Photos by Richard Gibson.

301 West Granite (M.J. Connell House)

Architect: Charles Prentice
Built: 1880-92
Map

Exceptionally fine craftsmanship and an intriguing combination of styles characterize this early and very elegant brick-veneered home, built in 1880, with the second story added in 1888. In 1892, dry goods merchant Michael J. Connell commissioned local architect Charles Prentice, known for his creative façades, to add the east wing, bay, and porch to Connell’s Second Empire style residence. Exquisite stained glass and the Queen Anne style porch, embellished in the Eastlake tradition with elaborately cut wood and carved details, reveal the high quality of Prentice’s work. Restoration, ongoing since 1955, has included the addition of copper shingles on the mansard roof.

For a time in the 1910s the house served as the Unitarian Church and Parish House. 

Connell donated the original stained glass windows in the Trinity Methodist Church.

Sources: Historic Plaque by Montana Historical Society; Architectural Inventory; Sanborn maps. Photo by Richard Gibson.