Jewish, gay, and of Romanian ancestry, author Myron Brinig was born in Minneapolis in 1896 but spent his childhood in Butte, from 1897-1914. The Brinigs lived at 814 West Granite, a little blue miner’s cottage that survives today, and Myron’s father Maurice (known as Moses), a Butte dry goods merchant, gave Myron his model for Singermann, one of the main characters in his novels.

The Sacred Heart parish was organized in 1901, the third Catholic church in Butte, following St. Patrick’s and St. Lawrence O’Toole. In 1901-03, they met at 460-464 East Park, in a building adjacent to the site that would become the church at 448 East Park when it was completed in 1903.

The presidential election of 1896 was among the most hard-fought and complex in U.S. history, and Butte had a vested interest in it. The issue that mattered was gold vs. silver. Republicans, with William McKinley at the head of the ticket, strongly supported the gold standard, while William Jennings Bryan’s pro-silver platform attracted disgruntled western Republicans who had split to form the National Silver Party.

Washington came to Butte on March 6, 1913. He arrived as the white supremacist governor of South Carolina, Coleman Blease, was announcing that Negroes in that state would not be tried for alleged assaults on white women (conviction would be automatic), nor would those who lynched them be punished.

The Mantle & Bielenberg Block on West Broadway, home to Sassy’s Consignments shop today, was one of the primary labor temples of Butte. In 1897, 17 different unions met in one of the many halls upstairs. The 1891 building was an investment by businessmen Lee Mantle and Nick Bielenberg.

Desertion and bigamy, conspiracy and fraud, perjury, interests in seven mines in Butte and the lot holding the City Hall, and 160 acres in Santa Clara County, California. And all that was mostly after Rolla Butcher died.

No-spitting laws had been proposed for many years but never enacted, in part because of the belief that prejudice on the part of policemen would be a problem. “He could arrest an enemy almost any time,” according to Dr. Abram Leggatt, who was nonetheless a proponent of the new law.

A friend of mine shared an invitation to the AOUW’s third anniversary party in Walkerville, two days before Christmas, 1885. The grand ball was held on a Wednesday evening and actually honored the establishment of the Silver Bow Lodge Number 11 of the AOUW.

he reverberatory furnaces used the heat of coal combustion to reduce the metal to a molten state, but the fuel was not mixed with the ore as in a blast furnace. Calcining is a way of enhancing thermal decomposition of the ore short of melting. The state-of-the-art Allen-Brown-O’Hara furnaces were roasters that could process 60 tons a day when the MOP began operation.

Tom O’Neill and James Mooney responded to the police call. When they arrived at the Merriam Block, they found Mrs. Benevue shot and Knight gone to his room at the rear of the building. O’Neill, Mooney, Walsh, and Kinney charged his room, to be met with gunshots.

Butte’s first professional dentist was probably F. E. Gleason, who provided dental services from 1878 to 1885. He was the only dentist in 1879, when Butte’s population was 2,911, served by at least six physicians, but he was joined by Robert Todd in 1883 and J.W. Reed in 1884.

“Butte has more dogs for a city of its size than any town in America. This is the opinion of every traveler who ever stopped off on his way east or west and of every citizen, be he dog fancier or dog hater, who has taken the time to think of something besides business. And it’s true.”

On February 6, 1903, Butte residents opened their Anaconda Standard to read a lavishly illustrated report of a lurid murder. The Standard’s five-column front-page story began, “One woman's infidelity to her husband, the jealous hatred of another married woman for the unfaithful one and the rage of a wronged husband seeking to avenge the destruction of his domestic felicity are the three principal factors in one of the most tragic murders Butte has known for a long time.”

The parapet at 18-20 West Broadway today says “Christie 1932,” but this building is much older than that. In historic images the sign says “D’Acheul 1890,” reflecting its origin. Harry D’Acheul, born in Missouri about 1845 to parents native to France, partnered with Prussian-born Henry Parchen to establish a prominent drug store in Butte that operated for many years at 32 North Main; the building that housed it was destroyed in a 1912 fire.

Minor league baseball in Butte began about 1892, when Butte was part of the Montana State League. In 1900, the team was called the Butte Smoke Eaters, and at least seven Smoke Eaters played in the major leagues at some point in their careers.

It’s well known that Michael Hickey named his mine for a Civil War newspaper article by Horace Greely in which Greeley referred to McClellan’s army encircling Lee’s forces like a giant anaconda snake. Hickey served in McClellan’s army and gave the name to his claim in Butte in October 1875.

Butte is renowned for its huge production of copper and silver. Zinc, not so much – yet Butte produced nearly 5 billion pounds, 2½ million tons, of zinc.

The Creamery Café, commemorated in the prominent ghost sign on the east face of the Mantle & Bielenberg building on Broadway (and a less prominent one on the west face), occupied part of the ground floor there from 1913 until 1957.

When the Montana volunteers returned from the Philippines in 1899 after the Spanish-American War ended, it was a big deal. The entertainment committee, led by Senator Lee Mantle, raised more than $18,000, a huge fortune in those days, with more than half of it coming from four men who donated $2,500 each: William A. Clark, F. Augustus Heinze, Marcus Daly, and G.M. Hyams.