Scott Block (15 W. Copper)

15 W. Copper
Builder: J.R. McGlauflin
Map 

Single copper miners found ample accommodations at this fine boarding house, built in 1897 by J. R. McGlauflin for Mrs. Bridget Scott at a construction cost of $5,000. The handsome brick building with its full-height opposing bays, transomed windows, bracketed wood cornice, and central name plate illustrates an urban solution to a mining camp problem: adequate and ample housing for single men. In 1910, boardinghouse keeper Mrs. Mary Long had thirteen lodgers, and all but one (a postal clerk) worked in the copper mining industry. Rented rooms were on the second and third floors. Mrs. Long had her own rooms on the ground floor, where she prepared meals and served her boarders.

Extensive rehabilitation between 1991 and 1994 included a new metal roof like the original and restoration of interior transoms and rosette-trimmed woodwork. During these efforts, owners found a Prohibition Era treasure: concealed under the furnace room floor were two intact whiskey barrels.

Resource: Historic plaque by Montana Historical Society, with additions by Linda Albright. Photo by Linda Albright.

607 West Copper

By Richard I. Gibson

Built: circa 1905
Map

This typical four-square miner’s home sits isolated today, as it always has. To the west was Missoula Gulch and the Anselmo Mine yard; to the south, Cherokee Park today (in the foreground of the photo above), was the Silver King Mine. The four lots to the east on Copper Street have always been vacant, mapped as “gulch” on the maps from 1900 to 1957.

The house is of solid brick construction, not just veneer. By 1910 the Michael J. Shea family began a long tenure here. He was a miner, working at the Little Mina in 1910 and the High Ore in 1917. Michael J. died about 1941, but his widow, Mary, and their children Margaret and Michael C. continued to live here. Michael C. followed in his father’s footsteps as a miner, employed at the Anselmo in 1945. Son and daughter lived here into the late 1950s. Margaret worked as a dressmaker and clerk for several grocery stores until about 1960, when she became a dispatcher for the City Taxi Company. She worked there until the late 1970s, and lived here at 607 until 1979. The house stood vacant for four years until it came into new ownership in 1984.

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

111 West Copper

By Richard I. Gibson

Architect: C.E. Pierce
Built: 1916
Map

This two-level, two-resident shotgun house is typical of buildings erected on Butte’s narrow lots. Mine dumps from the Original Mine, directly north, and its precipitation plant just to the northeast were juxtaposed with the narrow residential district on Copper Street. The northwest corner of Copper and Arizona was occupied by a rooming house, with the Swedish Methodist Episcopal Church on the second floor; directly across the street, on the northeast corner, was the Gold Hill United Lutheran Church. Sandwiched between the mine yard and the large government and commercial buildings of Quartz and Granite Street, this tiny neighborhood was a microcosm of Butte’s intricately interconnected industrial, residential, and commercial zones.

Space-saving innovations in the shotgun duplex include a roll-away bed that slides out of the dining buffet from beneath the adjacent bathroom floor. The building cost $2,800 when it was constructed. The wood frame and brick veneer are typical of Butte shotgun houses of this era; the original floor plan is intact. The rear stairway has been restored to the original design.

Modified slightly from Vernacular Architecture Forum, Butte Conference Guidebook, 2009, p. 123, by Richard Gibson.

31 E. Copper

By Irene Scheidecker

Built: 1910
Architect: Herman Kemna
Map

This California bungalow is of primary significance in the Butte National Historic Landmark District because it is the only bungalow-style residence still standing in the eastern part of the district. It was the home for many years of Larry Duggan, a prominent Butte undertaker, and his wife Mary.

Butte miners called the deadly rocks that fell in mine tunnels “Duggans.” The reference was to undertaker Lawrence Duggan, who lived in this house from 1910 until his death in 1939. One of the first professionally trained embalmers in Butte, Duggan opened a mortuary at 322 N. Main in 1895. Perhaps he chose the location for its proximity to the Miners Union Hall and the mines. Behind the house was Duggan’s heated sixteen-car garage, where he kept his hearses. Active in Irish fraternal organizations, the Workingman’s Union, and local politics, Duggan served three terms as sheriff during the 1920s. Vigilant against the Ku Klux Klan—whose members he threatened to shoot “like wolves”—Duggan was likely more tolerant of bootleggers and moonshiners. Butte retained its reputation as a wide-open town throughout Prohibition.

The residence was designed by architect Herman Kemna, and cost approximately $6000 to build. An article in the Butte Miner newspaper of July 3, 1910, describes the house thus: "In its many distinctive features lies the secret of the bungalow's attractiveness. Not the least of which is the flower oriel window facing the west, which is deeply recessed in the dining room and gives the bungalow a flavor of the Dutch architecture. There is a pleasing and decidedly novelty in the design of the front windows as well. These open on a great wide, well-shaded porch, the floor of which is of brown paving brick. This, together with the concrete steps, insures a cool porch in the warmest of summer weather."

Resources: Architectural Inventory; Historic plaque by Montana Historical Society; Butte Archives; Butte Miner. Photo by Don Scheidecker. This article is modified slightly from its original publication in the Vernacular Architecture Forum Guidebook, Butte, 2009.

Floor plan. Field work and drawing by Irene Scheidecker.