A rather ignominious end for one of Butte's most important early buildings, the city's first town hall is today a burger stand. Hopefully, at least the burgers are as the name suggests:
Best Burger.
Built in 1884, this, the city's first city hall, served the city until it was outgrown by the fast growing city just six years later. Built with the inclusion of a jail and a courtroom, it's easy to see that it was meant to serve only the needs of a small town, not the city Butte quickly became.
Built on the discovery of gold and silver on Anaconda Hill, beside which Butte stands, Butte quickly developed and by 1880 boasted 3,363 residents and was the most prosperous city in Montana. In 1881 the mining center became the seat of Silver Bow County, further bolstering its economy. Further, that same year the arrival of the Utah Northern Railway linked the city with the Union Pacific Railroad at Ogden, Utah, creating a rail link with the outside world. Shortly after, the Northern Pacific Railroad also arrived in the town.
With the advent of electricity and the electrification of towns and cities the world over, copper came into great demand, defining Butte's future. It turned out that one of the largest accessible copper deposits in the world was right there under the city and it didn't take long for the capitalists of the town to monetize the resource. By 1884 the city was shipping $1,250,000 per month worth of silver and copper and
by 1890, America's emergent copper metropolis boasted 10,723 inhabitants, over 80 operating mines, and 4,000 industrial and service workers. The decade between 1890 and 1900 saw Butte's population triple, rising from 10,723 to 30,470.
By August of 1885, the West Shore, a Pacific Coast promotional magazine proclaimed, "the largest, busiest and richest mining camp in the world today is Butte, Montana."
By 1993 the mines, most notably the Anaconda Copper Company, which, after Standard Oil's acquisition in 1899, became a subsidiary of the Amalgamated Copper Mining Company, shipped
3 million ounces of gold, 709 million ounces of silver, 855 million pounds of lead, 3.7 billion pounds of manganese, 4.9 billion pounds of zinc, and an incredible 20.8 billion pounds of copper. Anaconda Hill became known as the "Richest Hill on Earth."
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the city was the scene of some of the worst labour unrest in the country, with the miners constantly struggling for a living wage and better and safer working conditions, while the mine owners fought to retain as many of the immense profits as possible. Over the years there were many disputes, some ending in riots, some ending in walkouts, some ending in deaths, murders and lynchings, some resulting in calling in the National Guard and proclamations of a state of martial law. Though it was an uphill fight against the power of the large mining companies, most notably the "Anaconda Company", eventually out of Butte came improved working conditions and wages for workers worldwide, as well as important labour laws which benefit the welfare of workers.
Italics above are taken from the
Butte Anaconda Historic District Registration Form
ORIGINAL CITY HALL
By the early 1880s the railroad linked Butte to the outside world and the town had established itself as a mining camp with a great future. One of the few standing structures from the formative era is this masonry, two-story landmark. Under construction in 1884, it housed the first official city administrative offices. Included among these were the jail and a courtroom. Although the height of the second-story windows has been reduced, the upper portion of the building appears as it did in the 1880s. Ornate details along the parapet of angled and corbelled brick reveal the excellence of Butte’s early brickmasons. After 1890, city offices moved, and the façade was modified to accommodate commercial space. The original stairway at the east end, however, remains intact.
From the NRHP plaque at the building