Episodes 001-050

Episodes 151-200

Episodes 201-250

Episodes 251-300

Episode 101 - Chinn Family

When Chin Yee Fong came to Butte in 1905 to join his father at the Wah Chong Tai Company, he was about 16 years old. He attended Garfield School and by 1910 he was the assistant bookkeeper of the most prestigious Chinese business in Butte.

Episode 102 - President Taft Visits

Following his speech at Granite and Montana, Taft was taken to the Leonard mine shaft where he and a 30-man entourage descended to the 1200 level. Despite Taft’s famous girth, reports indicated that he was accompanied in the cage by several others.

Episode 103 - Episcopal Church

Ash Wednesday, 1919, was a tragic and ironic day for St. John’s Episcopal Church, when fire reduced much of its interior to ashes. St. John’s is the oldest church standing in Butte, predating the current St. Patrick’s by about a year.

Episode 104 - Sewell’s

Walter J. Sewell was born in 1876 in New Brunswick, of Welsh ancestry. At age 12, he was rafting logs on the St. John River to Fredericton, but he was soon heading west, following his grandfather, Thomas.

Episode 107 - Garden Spot

In the 1890s and early 1900s, Butte was notorious for the smoke and fumes emanating from its mills and smelters. It was said – and likely true, at least on occasion – that on a clear day the smoke was sometimes so bad you needed a lantern to see the street signs.

Episode 108 - The Smoke Wars

It was said in 1890 that Butte contained just four living trees—thanks to the need for timber in mine tunnels, wood to construct houses, fuel for smelters, and death of trees by toxic fumes.

Episode 109 - Butte’s First Band

“I think that was the first band in the state aside from the military bands at the army posts,” George Fitschen recalled years later. Fitschen had come to Montana in 1868, from Hanover, Germany, emigrating alone at the age of 14 in 1858.

Episode 110 - Mary Fifer

The Independent Order of Odd Fellows (IOOF) has its roots in England and Scotland as long ago as the 1500s. The name’s origin is obscure, but most histories indicate that it came from their practice of admitting working-class members – making the organization “odd,” compared to most such groups that focused on the elite.

Episode 111 - Cricket

In 1902, Butte boasted two cricket clubs. Not associations of entomologists, but organizations devoted to the English national sport. The Centerville Cricket Club was established in 1898, and soon became state champions.

Episode 112 - Alma Higgins

Nicholas Bielenberg’s daughter, Alma Bielenberg Higgins, became prominent in Butte garden circles, but she got her start in Deer Lodge. At her request Nick acquired the mortgage on the Deer Lodge Women’s League Chapter House, donating it to the organization.

Episode 113 - Reno Sales

Sales was born in Iowa in 1876, and came with his family to the Gallatin Valley when he was five years old. Their homestead gave their name to Salesville, now Gallatin Gateway. He received his graduate Engineer of Mines degree in 1900 from Columbia School of Mines in New York City.

Episode 114 - Board of Trade

A saloon occupied the southeast corner of Park and Main, its angled door facing the intersection, from before 1884 until 1916, when the multitude of buildings around that corner were torn down to make way for the Rialto Theater.

Episode 115 - Butte in 1878

What was Butte like in, say, 1878? We were three years into the silver boom, but things hadn’t really taken off. The United States was still suffering from the effects of the Panic of 1873 and a financial crisis and depression caused in part by post-Civil War inflation.

Episode 116 - Electric Building

NorthWestern Energy’s former headquarters at 40 East Broadway began its life in 1911 as the Electric Building, home of the Butte Electric & Power Company.

Episode 117 - Lexington Mine

The Lexington is among the older claims in Butte, staked in 1865 by partners Heffner and McCann. But little happened at the site on the edge of Walkerville until the middle 1870s, when Butte’s silver rejuvenation began.

Episode 118 - Ice

While it’s likely that there was at least casual harvesting and storage of ice from lakes around town for use during the summer in Butte’s earliest days, it seems that Butte’s first commercial dealer in ice was W.H. Patterson.

Episode 119 - Tuttle Iron Foundry

As Butte evolved from a transitory mining camp to a permanent metropolis, strong building materials were in greater and greater demand. Bricks, obviously, but also iron. Cast-iron columns to help support the multi-story business blocks became common.

Episode 120 - Boston & Montana Band

Butte had musicians and bands almost from day one, and Butte’s first organized band celebrated the nation’s centennial in 1876. But the longest-lived band began in Meaderville on December 22, 1887.

Episode 121 - Skating Rinks

Roller skating was the rage in the U.S. in the 1880s, and as usual, Butte was at the leading edge. In 1884 Butte had at least two “official” indoor skating rinks.

Episode 122 - The Coughlins

Julia Coughlin’s death at age 66 in 1929 ended the 45-year tenure by her family in the 200 block of East Granite, between Arizona and Ohio Streets, straight across from the Washington School. For nearly 30 years of that time, Julia ruled the household and the businesses there as a widow.

Episode 123 - Five-Mile House

An inn, with a café and saloon, was probably at this location by the late 1880s and certainly by the early 1890s. The property was owned in the mid-1890s by ticket broker, cigar wholesaler, and later real estate tycoon Adolph Pincus.

Episode 124 - Butte Miner Newspaper

The summer of 1876, America’s centennial, came to a Butte City that was growing rapidly from its low point just two years earlier. The new Centennial Brewery and Centennial Hotel were joined by Butte’s first regular newspaper, the Butte Miner.

Episode 125 - C.E.R.A.

The Chinese Empire Reform Association (CERA) began in Victoria, British Columbia, in 1899, created by exile Kang Youwei. CERAs supported the short-lived reforms instituted by the Guangxu Emperor, who reigned 1875-1908, to modernize China.

Episode 126 - BA&P Railroad

The transcontinental railroads that served Butte by the early 1890s were in it for their own profits, not to make Marcus Daly’s life easy. Artificially high freight rates and inconsistent service drove Daly to establish his own railroad, the Butte Anaconda & Pacific, in 1892.

Episode 127 - Bennett Blocks

In late 1888 Bennett Block #1 was constructed at Utah and Front. Willard Bennett lived in Deer Lodge but was owner of the building and Vice President of Bennett Brothers Co., a dealer in agricultural implements, carriages, wagons, and produce.

Episode 128 - When the Whiskey Froze

The winter of 1866-67 was a cold one in Butte. Actually, there wasn’t much “Butte” – the population as recalled by pioneer Charles S. Warren was fewer than 200, but the placer gold camp at Silver Bow down the creek from Butte still had perhaps 2,500 people, including “not more than 25 women and children,” according to Warren.

Episode 129 - Anaconda Smelter Stack

The Washoe Smelter stack in Anaconda is the tallest free-standing masonry structure in the world. Yes, it is. Historian Carrie Johnson laid to rest any technicalities and competition with the Washington Monument a few years ago.

Episode 130 - Butte City Charter

There isn’t much doubt that Butte was destined to become a city, but it did get off to a somewhat tenuous start. Following the decline of the original gold camp to fewer than 100 people in 1874, Butte boomed rapidly with the silver rush of the late 1870s.

Episode 131 - The First Big Fire

June 9, 1881, was a Thursday. At 1:15 in the morning, a fire of unknown origin (but assumed at the time to be the “result of carelessness”) broke out in the rear of Pettit’s Furniture Store on West Broadway. It was Butte’s first major fire, and within an hour five buildings were gone.

Episode 132 - Stained Glass

As an upscale, well-to-do metropolis in the mountains, Butte was cutting edge in terms of its architecture, as well as the details that embellish so many of our buildings.

Episode 133 - Rainbeau

By 1877 Walkerville’s population was several hundred people, and the town was ready to have a post office. It had to have a name. A formal request was made by the “young women of the community” asking that the town be named Rainbow.

Episode 134 - Polygamy Alley

Often enough, they were just called “the alley between Granite and Quartz Streets” or something similar. But from about 1884-1887, Butte boasted a uniquely named alley: Polygamy Alley.

Episode 135 - 2nd Worst Mine Disaster

Twenty-one men were killed February 14, 1916, in a fire at the Pennsylvania Mine. The Pennsylvania stood at the eastern ends of Broadway and Park Streets, where Parrot Street intersected. That location is within the Berkeley Pit today.

Episode 136 - Bidwell Brothers

Butte likes to say that every bad guy (and gal) that ever existed came to Butte and did something here. Billy the Kid, Bonnie and Clyde, Al Capone, Doc Holliday (he really was here), Attila the Hun. But in 1899, two of the most notorious international criminals of the 1870s did come to Butte. And they died.

Episode 137 - Sheriff Furey

The union-supporting Butte Bystander newspaper cheered the election of James B. Furey as President of the Butte Miner’s Union in 1897. As they reported December 18, 1897, he was into his second term in “that important office,” re-elected with virtually no opposition.

Episode 138 - Mother Jones

Butte seems to attract the most dangerous women in the world – apparently meaning smart, articulate, progressive women fighting for causes they believed in. Carrie Nation, Emma Goldman, and Mother Jones were all called “the most dangerous woman in America” or the world at various times, and Butte saw them all.

Episode 139 - Chimney Sweep

The beginning of the Christmas season in Butte in 1902 was also chimney-cleaning season. “It has been noticeable that there is a great rush to have the chimneys of the houses swept and thoroughly cleansed for the accommodation and comfort of the ever-welcome Santa.”

Episode 140 - Post Offices

Butte City had a post office ten years before the city was incorporated. Anson Ford ran the office beginning July 20, 1868, in his drug store, and typically delivered 20 to 40 letters a week that came into Butte via stage coach or with random individual riders.

Episode 141 - Spanish-American War

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.

Episode 142 - Creamery Cafe

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.

Episode 143 - Zinc

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. That makes Butte #6 in the U.S. as a zinc producer, and the U.S. Geological Survey ranks Butte at #4 in terms of produced plus remaining resource.

Episode 144 - Anaconda Mine

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.

Episode 145 - Baseball

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.

Episode 146 - Harry D’Acheul

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.

Episode 147 - Murder at the Maule

On February 6, 1903, Butte residents opened their Anaconda Standard to read a lavishly illustrated report of a lurid murder.

Episode 148 - The Mikado

Sisters Annie and Katie Nesbitt opened the Mikado Dining Hall on October 1, 1894, in the Barnard Block at 15 West Granite Street. They had been in the restaurant business for at least a few years—in 1892 Annie managed and Katie was a waitress at a café at 45 West Granite.

Episode 149 - Butte Dogs

“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.”

Episode 150 - Dentists

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.