Butte, America’s Story Episode 251 - Charles Juttner

Welcome to Butte, America’s Story. I’m your host, Dick Gibson.

Declining population in Butte meant that the buildings, erected to accommodate nearly 100,000 people, were slowly abandoned after World War I, usually from the upper floors downward. One of the last occupants of the second floor of the Dellinger Block at 117 North Main Street was lawyer Charles Juttner.

Charles Frank Juttner, born February 28, 1876, was one of ten children born to Joseph and Mary Juttner in Menominee, Michigan. He received a degree in law at the University of Michigan where he also played football as a 6’ 1”, 172-pound tackle and end in 1897. His studies were interrupted by the Spanish American War, and he enlisted in Company A of the 31st Michigan Infantry and was deployed to Cuba in 1899.

Juttner practiced law in Michigan from 1900 until 1908, when he came to Butte. He worked initially as a laborer at the Butte Reduction Works along Silver Bow Creek just west of Montana Street, but by 1909 he was the President of the Mill & Smeltermen’s Union. About 1914 he returned to the practice of Law and by 1918 had his offices on the fourth floor of the Daly Bank Building – today’s Metals Bank.

He ran for Silver Bow County district judge as a Republican in 1916 and for County Attorney in 1918, losing to Democrat Joseph Jackson by a vote of 8128 to 6226. One of his last ventures in politics was his run for the US Senate seat in 1924 as a Socialist. By that time, the Socialist movement in the United States was almost dead, and Juttner only garnered 522 votes out of about 170,000 cast. His fourth-place finish was still ahead of Independent Party candidate Sam Teagarden. Juttner tried again for the Senate as a Republican in 1928 but came in third in the party primary.

Sometime before 1936, Juttner moved his law office to the Dellinger Block, a space he occupied until late 1938 or early 1939 when the upper floor was abandoned and sealed off. In 1939 his office was above Gordon’s Jewelers and the then new Toggery Men’s Clothing store.

Artifacts found on the second floor when the space was opened up for historic tours in the middle 2000s suggest that he was politically left of center. Newspapers discovered there included 1930s copies of the Daily Worker, the newspaper of the American Communist Party, and the Moscow News. Juttner may have been sensitive about his weight as well, since dozens of penny weight machine tickets were found indicating that he tipped the scales at 225 to 240 pounds in the late 1930s.

After the second floor of the Dellinger Block was abandoned, Juttner moved his office back to the Metals Bank building for a time. He died in 1948. By 1952 the stairway to the upper level of the Dellinger was removed, preventing access until about 2004.

The building at 117 North Main is actually three separate structures. The two one-story buildings on the ground floor, joined together today, were built separately before 1884. They were damaged but survived a huge fire in 1889, and the second level was added about 1891 to create the Dellinger Block.

As writer Edwin Dobb has said, "Like Concord, Gettysburg, and Wounded Knee, Butte is one of the places America came from." Join us next time for more of Butte, America’s Story.