The State Savings bank was strong enough that in 1906, with additional financial backing by the Daly Bank owned by Marcus Daly’s widow, a $325,000-dollar skyscraper was constructed on the site. It was one of the first skyscrapers in Montana, defined by its steel girder internal frame construction, and the second skyscraper in Butte after the 1901 Hirbour Tower a block north on Main Street.

Erected in 1897–98 where the Centennial Hotel once stood, the Hennessey was occupied in 1901 by the Anaconda Copper Mining Company and served as its corporate headquarters for the next seventy-six years. “The Sixth Floor” became a pejorative term for corporate greed and control.

By 1893, the ordinance governing building construction had grown to a twenty-nine-page document, specifying that “the walls and outer coverings of all buildings hereafter erected or enlarged within the fire limits of the City of Butte shall be built of stone, brick, or iron, or other incombustible materials.”

Front Street in 1884 had to be a busy hub where visitors coming in by train got their first glimpse of the Richest Hill on Earth. It was somewhat isolated from the rest of Butte, which was about a mile or so up the hill, and until the middle 1890s it was technically in a separate community, South Butte.

Concrete, brick, granite boulders, rough manganese-laden rocks, and cut granite blocks all form walls throughout Butte. But a few surviving slag brick walls speak loudly to our mining heritage.

Original painted wood grain on walls, doors, or furniture is important to the historical integrity of a house or object, and it may add significant monetary value to property as well. It provides the historical context for Butte’s developing middle class neighborhoods in the 1890s and early 1900s.

The city of Anaconda began to grow the instant construction began on Marcus Daly’s concentrator and smelter system in the summer of 1883. Children lived in Anaconda from the start, and they first attended school in a small cabin about a mile west of town.

Chinese tongs were originally benevolent and protective organizations, usually based on family and business relationships. They also evolved to have elements of secret societies, organized crime, and Mafia-like gangs.

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.

A booming population and huge industrial demand meant that Butte needed imaginative solutions to the problem of water supply in semi-arid country, in headwaters country where the only rivers were small streams and creeks.

Thomas Jefferson Murray, born in Tennessee, came to Butte to practice medicine in 1885 when he was 30 years old. Over time, he served as the Vice-President of the American Medical Association, President of the State Board of Medical Examiners, and President of the Silver Bow Club.

Matilda Sissieretta Jones brought her international fame to Butte on May 23, 1909, together with her troupe of performers, the Black Patti Musical Comedy Company.

Opening night at the Margaret Theater in Anaconda, September 28, 1897, was the “Event of Events,” with all 1,246 seats filled by the glitterati of Butte and Anaconda. Senator Lee Mantle’s guests in his private box included Augustus Heinze and Charles S. Warren, prominent Butte pioneer and the town’s first chief of police.

By 1899, as Butte approached a population of 48,000, Mountain View, along with many other churches in Butte, had outgrown its original building. The 1878 church was torn down in 1899, and a massive new brick structure was built by contractor A.S. Whiteway to the design of prominent Butte architects Link & Donovan.

The Cabbage Patch, as it came to be called, was home to the dregs of society as well as honest citizens down on their luck. Alcoholics, bootleggers, and criminals shared more than 200 shanties with down-trodden minorities, widows with children, and new immigrants come to Butte with no connections.

Simon Jacobs, born in Mississippi in 1862 a year before his father Henry fought for the Confederacy at the Siege of Vicksburg, came north with his parents to Montana’s gold fields by 1868. When he committed suicide May 6, 1895, Butte was plunged into mourning for its young city Treasurer.

Milholland’s travels took her to 30 cities in just three weeks, where she gave more than 50 speeches. Butte was near the mid-point of her grueling journey.

Walker’s Saloon, just east of the State Savings Bank at Park and Main (now the Metals Bank Building) was packed on Sunday night at about 6:45 when police officer Philip Prlja responded to a disturbance call.

When Hum Fay married Miss Ah Yen of Spokane in Butte January 16, 1909, the small space in Hum’s home at Colorado and Mercury Streets meant that reporters covering the event stood in the doorway, but they produced a three-column story on the wedding for the Anaconda Standard.