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.

401 West Granite (John Benton Leggat Residence)

Built: c. 1897
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Elaborate and elegant on its eye-catching corner, this well-tended gabled and turreted Victorian-era home was built circa 1897 for mining engineer J. Benton Leggat. Bowed glass, a diamond-paned window, and dentils under all the eaves spark its distinctive personality. An 1890 graduate of Washington University, Leggat subsequently located in Butte where he operated numerous mining properties. It was said of him: “While men less resourceful and more cautious are thinking of a plan, he is accomplishing a result.”

401 West Granite in 1913.

After Leggat left Butte in 1913, the next owner was Harry Byrne, Butte manager of Paine Webber stock brokerage. A later longtime owner was Dr. Thomas J. Murray, who came to Butte in 1885 after proving his medical skills in the dangerous back-water swamps of Mississippi. Murray, who died in 1930, long operated a private hospital in Butte and was influential in securing legislation that created the state board of medical examiners. Although its many rambling rooms have long been divided into rentals, the nineteenth-century essence of this beautiful home is untouched.

Modified from historic plaque text by Montana Historical Society. Historic photo from Anaconda Standard, Nov. 5, 1913; modern photo by Richard Gibson. Image of Leggat from Cartoons and Caricatures of Men in Montana (1907) by E.A. Thomson (scan by Butte Public Library).

403-405 West Granite

Built: c. 1890
Map 

Hardware merchant William M. Jack built this two-story dwelling circa 1890. Scottish-born Jack was a dealer in hardware, tinware, stoves, pumps, and mining equipment. A collection of several outbuildings, a small house, two large warehouses for stoves, and an underground stable covered the site in 1888. Jack razed these utilitarian buildings and replaced them with much more attractive housing for himself and a tenant. Jack soon moved on, but over the next decades, the building served several purposes. By 1916, it had been converted to housekeeping rooms to satisfy a greater need for housing as the copper industry boomed.

In the 1920s, physician Neil O’Keefe and dentist John F. Kane had their offices along with Ingersoll-Rand mining machinery at 403. The United Press Association occupied the other side at 405. During the 1930s, the building again provided residence housing, this time for the Hubert Neal and Leonard Backstrom families. Originally clad in brick veneer, the double dwelling has long been divided into four apartments. Residents access the two halves though central doorways opening onto a shared porch.

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

25 East Granite (The Napton)

Built: 1906
Architect: W.A. O’Brien
Map

A grand arched entryway topped by a wooden bracketed cornice and ornate iron rail welcomes visitors to the Napton. Because downtown apartment buildings were a hallmark of big cities like New York and Chicago, construction of the Napton Apartments in 1906 contributed to Butte’s image as a booming metropolis. Its construction also reflected investor confidence in Butte’s future, confidence justified by more than $3 million worth of building projects undertaken that year. The 1906 boom resulted in part from settlements of lawsuits in the War of the Copper Kings, freeing up investment money. The year is emblazoned in four separate medallions on the upper façade of the Napton.

Architect W. A. O’Brien designed and oversaw construction of the four-story, three-bay, 48-unit apartment building. As expected, the Napton soon became home to members of Butte’s professional class from teachers and mining engineers to business owners and stenographers. Judge George M. Bourquin, who lived here in room 211 from 1915 through 1939, was undoubtedly the Napton’s most renowned resident. Appointed to the federal bench from 1912 to 1934, Bourquin was a courageous defender of individual civil liberties in the face of the mass hysteria that swept the country during World War I. His decisions, highly controversial at the time, upheld such rights as freedom of expression and protection from unreasonable search and seizure. Bourquin and his wife Hazel also maintained a home at 223 N. Excelsior Street in the late 1920s.

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

724 West Granite (Powers Residence)

Built: 1898
Architect: R.R. Williams
Map 

For almost one hundred years, members of a single family lived in this Queen Anne style cottage. Carpenter R. R. Williams, who lived in the duplex next door, built the residence in 1898. By 1900, Irish immigrants John and Catherine Powers had purchased the home, where they lived with their infant daughter Margaret. John worked as a miner before going into real estate. By 1916, the Powers family had improved the residence, replacing the outhouse with indoor plumbing, adding a rear screen porch, and installing a gambrel dormer to expand the attic’s storage capacity.

After John and Catherine’s deaths, Margaret inherited the home. She lived here into the 1990s, joined for many years by her friend Virginia Orton. The seven-hundred-square-foot home features a projecting bay and many other Queen Anne style embellishments. These include stained glass, fish-scale shingles, turned wooden porch supports, a turned balustrade, and a spindle frieze—all mass produced and thus affordable to Butte’s working class. Such architectural ornamentation helped transform small houses like this one into much loved homes, as the Powers’ long residence testifies. Architect and carpenter R.R. Williams lived in the duplex next door to this house.

Modified from historic plaque text by Montana Historical Society. Additional resource: Vernacular Architecture Forum, Butte conference guidebook, 2009, p. 146. Photo by Richard Gibson.

327 West Galena Street (B'nai Israel Temple)

Built: 1903-04
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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.

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.