Built in 1890, just six years after the construction of Butte's first city hall, this building is an indicator of how fast Butte was growing at that time. Much larger and much more extravagant than the
previous city hall, it is also an indicator of the great wealth pouring into the city in that era. Probably ten times the size of the first city hall, this three storey Richardsonian Romanesque structure contained the police department, jail and fire department, as did the earlier city hall. At one front corner of the brick and stone building is a tall, five storey clock tower.
With a much longer tenure than its predesessor, this city hall remained in use as a city hall until 1977, at which time city and county governments were amalgamated, with all departments thereafter housed in the Silver Bow County Courthouse.
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.
Today a city of about 35,000, Butte's population peaked at around 60,000 in the 1920s. Butte had grown so quickly in its formative years that, by 1920, the city was essentially complete, with little new construction taking place for many years. As a result, the city has retained a vast number of historic structures. In fact, the Butte Anaconda Historic District, which also takes in the smaller (population ˜ 9,000) city of Anaconda, contains about 6,000 contributing structures. This makes it the largest Historic District in the nation, in terms of the number of contributing buildings, structures and objects within.
Italics above are taken from the
Butte Anaconda Historic District Registration Form
CITY HALL
Butte had over eighty working mines and a teeming population by 1890. The resulting flurry of industrial and commercial activity initiated a building boom, prompting Mayor Henry Mueller to oversee the construction of this handsome three-story Richardsonian Romanesque-inspired municipal building in 1891. The tall, narrow edifice of brick and stone features a clock tower, arched entrance, and arched windows with stained glass transoms. Butte’s last standing example of nineteenth-century civic architecture, this noble hall served as the seat of city government from 1891 until consolidation of city-county governments in 1977.
From the NRHP plaque at the building