A design by the prestigious architectural firm of Link and Haire, the four storey building was constructed as the Silver Bow County Courthouse. In 1977 the governments of the city of Butte and the county of Silver Bow consolidated to form the single entity of Butte-Silver Bow, making this now the Butte-Silver Bow Courthouse.
Faced with almost equal amounts of light beige brick and stone, this is one of the more impressive judicial buildings in the state. Not atypical of the works of Link and Haire, the courthouse is embellished with ornamentation throughout its exterior, beginning with the heavy carved stone keystones over the twin entry doors, above which are a half dozen two storey fluted Doric columns. The foundation and ground floor are faced entirely with stone, with heavy stone door frames. A band of stone runs around the building between the third and fourth floors, with ornamentation dropping from it on each pilaster which defines the edge of a bay. An overhanging eave just below the cornice was given decorated modillions which appear almost as brackets. Above, the cornice and parapet are of stone, with two more small eaves protruding, between which are recessed panels in each bay, filled with seashell-like carvings of stone. In the centre of the parapet, directly over the entrances, is a statue of "Blindfolded Justice" within a round floral-styled shield, surmounted by a carved seashell.
The Butte-Silver Bow entity, still a county for all intents and purposes, is the smallest county in Montana, at 719 square miles. At present the population hovers near 34,200.
Built on the discovery of gold and silver on Anaconda Hill, beside which Butte stands, Silver Bow County quickly developed and by 1880 Butte, the largest town in the county, 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 county 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 and the future of Silver Bow County. 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 with a population of about 35,000, Silver Bow's population peaked at around 60,000 in the 1920s. The Butte area had grown so quickly in its formative years that, by 1920, the county was essentially complete, with little new construction taking place for many years. As a result, it 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 in Deer Lodge County, 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
SILVER BOW COUNTY COURTHOUSE
Prestigious architects Link and Haire designed this magnificent four-story courthouse in the Beaux Arts style. This grandiloquent form introduced at Chicago’s 1893 Columbian Exposition was often utilized in American civic buildings. Offices within are laid out around a rotunda with an elaborate stained glass dome, and a molded stone figure of blind-folded Justice presides over the façade. Dedicated in 1912, the courthouse has served as podium for such famous statesmen as William Jennings Bryan and Franklin D. Roosevelt. In 1914, the courthouse became barracks for state militia when Butte was under martial law following violent labor disputes.
From the NRHP plaque at the building