Thornton Block - Butte, MT
Posted by: Groundspeak Premium Member T0SHEA
N 46° 00.838 W 112° 32.031
12T E 381260 N 5096743
One of the premier hotels of the time, the Thornton Block, built in 1901, stands beside an earlier "Thornton Hotel", built in 1890-91.
Waymark Code: WMWEM2
Location: Montana, United States
Date Posted: 08/23/2017
Published By:Groundspeak Premium Member ZenPanda
Views: 0
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Substantially larger that the first Thornton Hotel, the five story Thornton Block followed it ten years later, with the intention of becoming the best and finest hotel in the city. For a while it may have been as it managed to attract guests such as President Theodore Roosevelt in 1903 and Booker T. Washington in 1913.

Its career as a hotel ended in 1947 when it became a club for Anaconda Copper Mining Company employees. Thereafter, we can't say in what capacity it served. Today it's unknown to us who or what occupies the building as there is a dearth of signage to be found here.
Thornton Block 65 E BROADWAY - 1901-1910 - Neo-Classical - Contributing - Thornton Hotel - masonry structure
The Thornton Block followed in 1901 [65 W. Broadway], constructed at the corner of Broadway and Wyoming for $75,000. With a cast iron and glass entrance canopy, this beautifully detailed one-hundred room, five-story brick hotel was regarded as Butte's premier hostelry and one of the most elegant in the West at the time.

The last four years of the nineteenth century contributed significantly to the cosmopolitan aura of the Central Business District. With an eye toward the larger world beyond Montana's borders, Butte shed its "wide open" mining camp image and metamorphosed into a Rocky Mountain metropolis. The city self-consciously strove to create architecture to match its newly achieved status, and three late nineteenth century buildings in particular embodied this new image - the Hennessy Building, the Thornton Block and Sutton's Broadway Theater.
From the NRHP Registration Form, Page
THORNTON BLOCK

Beautifully detailed and thoroughly cosmopolitan, this $75,000 five-story hotel opened in 1901 featuring over one hundred rooms, a saloon, restaurant, barber shop, and bowling alley. A cast-iron and glass entrance canopy, stone balconies, Tudor arches, and decorative carving highlight the elegant exterior. Turn-of-the-twentieth-century hotel patrons, no doubt impressed with Butte’s metropolitan character, could even take an electric street railway direct to Sutton’s Broadway Theater. After 1947, the Thornton Block served for many years as a club for Anaconda Copper Mining Company employees.
From the NRHP plaque at the building
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Again, don't confuse this Thornton Hotel with the other Thornton Hotel, just next door. Just enjoy the view - this was at one time one of the finest hotels in the west, maybe...
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