The original 1886 Thomas Block on Park Street between Main and Dakota Streets burned down September 1, 1912 in one of the most costly conflagrations in Butte’s first 75 years, with losses estimated at nearly $221,000 in dollars of the day.

Julian Eltinge was perhaps the greatest female impersonator of the 20th Century. Born William Julian Dalton on May 14, 1881, in Newtonville, Massachusetts, he arrived in Butte as a child with his father, a mining engineer, and as a teenager began to perform dressed as a woman or girl in Butte saloons.

The T-shaped alley west of North Main between Broadway and Granite has been there with that geometry since before 1884. The three-story alley building at the corner of the T is connected by an overpass to 117 N. Main Street, part of the Dellinger Block at 117 N. Main.

The two-story Centennial Hotel included a saloon run by Beal’s son-in-law George Newkirk, plus an office, the 30-by-40-foot dining room, kitchen, laundry, wood house, and a two-level outhouse, as well as a nearby ice house.

When Sarah Bernhardt came to Butte in September 1891, the Daily Inter Mountain newspaper called it “the principal topic of the town,” the dramatic event of the decade for Montana.

The chief stamp clerk for the post office on Broadway was Bella Crangle. She graduated from Butte High, and went to work in the stamp department in 1898. The Anaconda Standard (April 27, 1902) gave her “the proud distinction of having met every man, woman and child of every nationality, color and creed in the city” in the course of her work.

The Butte Miners Union Day Parade on June 13, 1914, turned into a riot pitting union factions against each other. The ten days following were tense, but little if any violence took place in Butte.

The 900 block of Caledonia was home to four related families for much of the early 20th Century. Their diverse occupations connect us to much of Butte’s history. The three similar homes at 943, 947, and 951 Caledonia were all built about 1898, probably by the same builder.

Intense discrimination and prejudice against the Chinese was common in 19th Century Butte and throughout the west. How did the Butte Chinese community survive? The Butte Bystander, an unabashedly pro-union newspaper, supported efforts at boycotting the Chinese.

Young Doctor Campbell came to Butte, penniless, in the spring of 1892, quickly rising to prominence not only in Butte but throughout the west. By 1896 he was a state representative to the American Medical Association.

C.O. Ziegenfuss is certainly not a well-known name in Butte history, but he was a renowned newspaperman of the last quarter of the 19th Century. He seemed to follow trouble, and he made the news several times while reporting it.

The growing west side was served by its own fire station beginning in 1901. It stood in the angle between Caledonia and Excel that was cut by the BA&P railroad. A photo from 1901 shows the fire station in its last stages of construction.

Once when I was leading a walking tour, an observant student from Glendive, Montana, asked me about the significance of the Star of David in the stained glass in the 1890 City Hall (24 East Broadway). My answer was that it was not religious, but simply a popular geometric design.

In “Sweet Thunder,” Ivan Doig describes a celebration of poet Robert Burns’s birthday, held at the Butte Public Library. Although that account was fiction, Scots and their friends in Butte did celebrate the birthday of one of Scotland’s favorite sons.

The Western Federation of Miners, was organized in Butte at a convention beginning May 15, 1893. Violent confrontations took place between unionized workers, mine owners, and the state at Coeur d’Alene, Idaho.

Architect Henry Martin Patterson was born at Savannah, Ohio, May 5, 1856, of Scotch ancestry. His father, John Patterson, a native of Aberdeenshire in Scotland, came to America in 1835, settled in New York and moved to Ohio in 1837, where he worked as a carpenter and builder.

The Meagher Guards of Butte, “perhaps the most unique military organization of its kind in the country,” was formed in 1895. It was a completely independent military unit.

In January 1902 the announcement came that Butte would have two vehicles for rural mail delivery beginning the following summer. The car was a Winton Electric Car.

Butte’s ethnic diversity is well represented in the synagogue at Washington and Galena Streets. The Congregation B’nai Israel temple was dedicated on February 26, 1904, but the Butte Jewish community dates to 1875. Butte’s first mayor, Henry Jacobs, was Jewish.

A simple sign connects us to a lot of history. One of the artifacts at Butte’s Mai Wah Chinese history museum is a simple white board with black letters announcing the Quong On Laundry.