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.

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.

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.

“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

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.

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?

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.

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.

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. The Miners Bank and Trust Company was established in 1907, with David J. Charles the first president.

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.

he 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.”

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.