Episodes 001-050

Episodes 151-200

Episodes 201-250

Episodes 251-300

Episode 1 - The Election of 1916

Rose Morrow Rust was a Democratic candidate for the Montana legislature in 1916. Her campaign card boasted that she was "raised in Butte," but despite getting 1,678 votes in the primary election August 29, 31-year-old Mrs. Rust did not advance to the general election.

Episode 2 - The Rothschild Connection

Archibald Primrose, Fifth Earl of Rosebery and Prime Minister of Great Britain from 1894-95 married Hanna de Rothschild in 1878, at a time when she was the richest woman in Britain. The combined Rosebery-Rothschild fortunes allowed them to invest widely, even as far afield as Butte, Montana Territory.

Episode 3 - Centennial Brewery

America’s centennial in 1876 wasn’t lost on Butte, even though the town had just begun to grow from the low point two years earlier, when the population was somewhere between 60 and 250 hardy souls. Butte commemorated the centennial with at least two businesses that opened that year.

Episode 4 - Hazel Earle, Clairvoyant

“In all ages and in all times man has sought to pierce the veil of the future, and with the advance of civilization and progress the occult exercises a still greater fascination for mankind…” With that introduction, Western Resources Magazine’s issue entitled: Butte at the Dawn of the 20th Century, presented Hazel Earle, Clairvoyant.

Episode 7 - Chastine Humphrey

The first boy born in Butte, Chastine Humphrey, was born April 16, 1868, in a three-room log cabin beneath the shade of a fir tree – the only one in the townsite of Butte. The cabin stood on West Quartz Street at the site of the Maryland Boarding House, which was located at 21 West Quartz, the parking lot immediately west of the Fire Station, today’s Archives building.

Episode 8 - Robert Logan

Robert Logan traveled the world, spent most of his life in Butte, but started out a slave. He never knew his parents. At age one, in 1859, he was sold into slavery in Kentucky. His master, Edward W. Powell, raised race horses, and Robert rode as a jockey as well as performing other duties for Powell and other horsemen.

Episode 9 - Western Lumber

Even after the brick ordinance went into effect mandating fire-resistant construction in Butte, the demand for lumber was still huge. Many brick buildings were still framed in wood, and most residences in the booming city were wood, or brick-veneered wood. The Western Lumber Company was “one of the oldest and most successful” lumber companies in the city.

Episode 10 - John H. Curtis

“A man of sterling character and a citizen of the highest motives; of a bright mind and tireless energy.” Thus was John H. Curtis remembered in the Butte Miner when he died from Bright’s disease at age 68, July 8, 1906. Born in County Cork, Ireland, he came with his parents to the United States at age 5.

Episode 11 - Butte Argenta Stock

Way back in 1970, I found a file folder with four old stock certificates from Butte in a basement in Bloomington, Indiana, and I’ve been hauling them around ever since. Back then, I had no idea about the names – Butte-Argenta Copper Company, Montana-Continental Development Company, Keating Gold Mining Company.

Episode 12 - Fagan’s Pharmacy

Fagan’s Pharmacy at 52 Main Street in Meaderville was managed by William F. Fagan who opened the store in 1922 following ten years as a pharmacist at various places in Butte. He dealt in “drugs, prescriptions, paints, and calcamine” – the latter was a white or tinted liquid containing zinc oxide, water, glue, and coloring matter, used as a wash or light paint for walls and ceilings.

Episode 13 - Carrie Nation

Carrie Nation’s January 1910 visit to Butte is surrounded by myths – most of them untrue. Did she die just after leaving Butte? No, she lived for 18 months more, dying at age 64. Did her Butte experience so demoralize her that she gave up the hatchet? No, she preached almost to her dying day.

Episode 14 - First Jail

Thousands of people have visited Butte’s City Jail on Broadway Street as tourists, and a few of those visitors spent some involuntary time there before it closed in 1971. And a restaurant on Park Street retains the bars from the jail there, in the original City Hall, built in 1884.

Episode 15 - The Leonard Hotel

Let’s get one thing straight from the top: the Leonard Hotel was not built by Marcus Daly to block the view of his nemesis, William Clark. When the Leonard was erected in 1906, Daly had been in his grave in New York City for six years.

Episode 16 - St. Paul’s Hospital

The short-lived St. Paul’s hospital stood at the southeast corner of Gold and Montana Streets, 502 S. Montana. It was a three-story rectangular building, with a kitchen, dining room, and parlor on the ground floor.

Episode 17 - Floods of 1908

Late May and early June 1908 were some of the wettest days in Montana history. Rain, wet snow, and snowmelt combined to produce one of the most devastating floods to ever hit the region.

Episode 18 - Vice-consul of Greece

In 1900, Greece maintained nine consular offices in the United States – consuls in New York, where the Consul General was located; Chicago; Boston; Philadelphia; and San Francisco. Vice-Consuls provided services in Norfolk, Virginia; St, Louis, Missouri; Nashville, Tennessee; and Lowell, Massachusetts. On December 7, 1900, the King of Greece issued a decree naming a fifth Vice-Consul: George Scholomiti of Butte.

Episode 19 - Macaroni Factory

The southwest corner of Colorado and Porphyry Streets has been a vacant lot since the mid-1950s. What was there? Well, just the largest macaroni factory in the West.

Episode 20 - Gold Hill

“Gold Hill” has a nice ring to it – but it’s doubtful if Butte’s Gold Hill mines produced any notable gold, and they were only barely on the Butte Hill. The Washoe Copper Company, with backing from Marcus Daly, began to exploit a vein near Copper Street at Wyoming in the late 1880s.

Episode 21 - Southern Hotel

The north side of the first block of East Broadway held prominent hotels for many years. In mid-block, at 41-43 East Broadway, the longtime lodging house was the Southern Hotel. In 1884, the US Restaurant and Lodging House stood at this location, an elongate two-story wood building. By 1888, it had evolved into the Southern Hotel.

Episode 22 - Public Bath House

The “plunge,” which meant the swimming pool, was 20 feet by 50 feet. It’s not clear where in the building it was located, but by about 1910, the second floor held a gymnasium and the plunge was “not used.”

Episode 23 - Ursula Largey

Even though Urusula Largey and Julia Coughlin only lived about seven blocks from each other, it’s pretty unlikely that they ever met. The divide between 223 East Granite, where Julia lived as a teacher and grocery manager and 403 West Broadway, the Largey mansion, was deeper than the Mountain Con.

Episode 24 - Citizenship Denied

What did it take to become a U.S. citizen in Butte in 1917? The basic requirements were about as they are today, five years of residency and pass a citizenship test. You had to get two witnesses to testify to your character as well. So, more interestingly, what did it take to be denied citizenship?

Episode 25 - Electric Lights

Butte’s (and Montana’s) first electric light was lit at the Alice Mine in Walkerville, November 17, 1880, just a year after Edison invented the incandescent light bulb in 1879 and helped touch off Butte’s copper boom.

Episode 26 - Mercury & Jackson

The Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps provide a wealth of information for historical research, often telling us the size and layout of buildings, the nature of their construction, what kind of business was there, and much more. We see that in 1884, there was a mine at the intersection of West Mercury and Jackson Streets.

Episode 27 - Emma Goldman

Most students of Butte history know of one notorious woman’s visit to Butte in 1910: Carrie Nation brought her hatchet but had little impact locally, beyond entertainment. Another woman, prominent in her day, also visited Butte in 1910—Emma Goldman.

Episode 28 - Dusseau the Photographer

Angelo (or Alrick) Dusseau was born in Burlington, Vermont, in 1842 or 1843, of French-Canadian parents. He traveled west, to Wisconsin, by the time he was 23 years old, working as a carpenter on a railroad and as an engineer for a steam line in Missouri. By 1869 he was in Montana, employed as a practicing musician in Helena.

Episode 29 - Corner By Corner

Today let’s take an armchair expedition to the corner of Quartz and Crystal—a great intersection for a geologist like me to live, and in fact where my own home is located. The first thing you might notice about this corner is that it’s not a simple four-way corner. Quartz Street jogs. There’s a fascinating historical reason for this.

Episode 30 - Naming the Neversweat

The Neversweat Mine was one of Butte’s icons, its famous seven stacks imprinted on the imagination of Irish immigrants and others long before they arrived in America. The story is commonly told that its name came from the fact that it was a cool mine, but there’s no truth to that story.

Episode 31 - Lover’s Roost

Lover’s Roost or Lover’s Knoll is the quaint name given in the old days to the little hill between West Gold and Platinum Streets, with a high point east of South Crystal Street. There’s only one house on this entire block.

Episode 32 - Miner’s Bank

Butte experienced its second mining boom in the nineteen-teens before and during World War I. The Miner’s Bank is indicative of the healthy economy during these years when copper rose to a high of twenty cents a pound.

Episode 33 - The Great Shutdown

The case of the Minnie Healey Mine was settled in Heinze’s favor in late October, 1902, with Judge William Clancy essentially declaring Amalgamated’s operations illegal. The Company’s response was to shut down all its businesses in Montana, especially the Butte mines.

Episode 34 - Hansen Packing

The iconic – and somewhat eerie – structure near Timber Butte off Rowe Road is all that’s left of a gigantic meat-packing enterprise, Hansen Packing. Walter G. Hansen was born in Denmark on Christmas Eve, 1878, and came to America at age 11.

Episode 35 - Maud S

Maud S canyon has been a favorite hiking destination on the East Ridge above Butte for more than a century. In 1906, the Anaconda Standard called it “one of the most desirable spots for a day’s outing.” But who was Maud S who gave her name to his beautiful canyon?

Episode 36 - 100,000 or Not?

One of the most common and contested statements about Butte is that it was home to 100,000 people in 1917, the largest city from Minneapolis to Seattle. Is that really true? Census figures for Butte are difficult to rely on for several reasons.

Episode 37 - Miles Fuller

“Feeble, old prospector executed in early morn.” Thus was the hanging of Miles Fuller reported in the Extra Edition of the Butte Miner on Friday May 18, 1906. Of the ten men who have been executed on the gallows at the Silver Bow County courthouse, Miles Fuller is probably the best known.

Episode 38 - Brickmaker

One of the most common questions visitors to Butte ask is “Why all the bricks? And where did they come from?” The why is easy – fires.

Episode 39 - Chinatown

By most accounts, Butte was home to some 30 different ethnic groups and nationalities. The Chinese population was typically undercounted in censuses, which show a maximum of about 400 Chinese in Butte. But Rose Hum Lee, a Butte native and expert on America’s Chinatowns, estimated close to 2,500 Chinese at Butte’s peak in the early 1900s.

Episode 40 - First Union

400 men marched from Walkerville down Main Street into Butte, led by a brass band, to meet at the Orphean Hall where the strike was called. Butte’s first union, the Butte Workingmen's Union, was established to further the goals of the strike on June 13, 1878.

Episode 41 - Quong On

A simple sign connects us to a lot of history. One of the artifacts at Butte’s Mai Wah Chinese history museum is a simple white board with black letters announcing the Quong On Laundry.

Episode 42 - Synagogue

Butte’s ethnic diversity is well represented in the synagogue at Washington and Galena Streets. The Congregation B’nai Israel temple was dedicated on February 26, 1904, but the Butte Jewish community dates to 1875.

Episode 43 - Motorized Postal Service

Butte wasn’t always first in the nation or the world at everything, much as we’d like to think so. But as one of the largest and richest cities in the west, Butte was usually pretty close to the cutting edge. In January 1902 the announcement came that Butte would have two vehicles for rural mail delivery beginning the following summer.

Episode 44 - The Meagher Guards

The Meagher Guards of Butte, “perhaps the most unique military organization of its kind in the country,” was formed in 1895. It was a completely independent military unit, not beholden to either the State of Montana or the United States government

Episode 45 - Henry Patterson

Architect Henry Martin Patterson was born at Savannah, Ohio, May 5, 1856, of Scotch ancestry. His father, John Patterson, a native of Aberdeenshire in Scotland, came to America in 1835, settled in New York and moved to Ohio in 1837.

Episode 46 - WFM Welcome to Butte

The Western Federation of Miners, was organized in Butte at a convention beginning May 15, 1893. Violent confrontations between unionized workers, mine owners, and the state at Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, where five miners were shot and 600 others were arrested without bail or trial in 1892, was the driving force behind the WFM’s formation.

Episode 47 - Robert Burns

In “Sweet Thunder,” Ivan Doig describes a celebration of poet Robert Burns’s birthday, held at the Butte Public Library. Although that account was fiction, Scots and their friends in Butte did celebrate the birthday of one of Scotland’s favorite sons.

Episode 48 - Iconography

Once when I was leading a walking tour, an observant student from Glendive, Montana, asked me about the significance of the Star of David in the stained glass in the 1890 City Hall (24 East Broadway). My answer was that it was not religious, but simply a popular geometric design. But the question spurred an inquiry into some iconic designs in historic Butte buildings.

Episode 49 - Fire Station No. 3

The little triangular tract bounded by Excelsior and Caledonia Streets and the walking trail that follows the former BA&P Railroad bed has an interesting history. In 1891, the area around Excelsior was platted, but few homes had been built.

Episode 50 - Zig

C.O. Ziegenfuss is certainly not a well-known name in Butte history, but he was a renowned newspaperman of the last quarter of the 19th Century. He seemed to follow trouble, and he made the news several times while reporting it.