A large arched stone entryway sets the Mantle/Henderson & Bielenberg Building apart from its near neighbors, giving it an unmistakable street side presence. Behind that entryway is a recessed portico from which a pair of doors lead to a business establishment within and the central stairs to the upper floors. Built in 1890 by stockman come financier N. J. Bielenberg as an investment, the building housed, at various times, the Butte Miner newspaper and Western Union Telegraph on the ground floor, the offices of various companies on the second floor, and a rooming house and recreation hall on the third floor.
A longtime resident of the building was The Creamery Café, commemorated in the prominent ghost signs on the east and west faces of the building. The café occupied part of the ground floor from 1913 until 1957, moving to this building following a devastating fire on North Main Street, its original location.
A newspaper account from 1888 notes that it was requested that Bielenberg use cast iron in the building instead of brick due to a shortage of bricks. Indeed, the ground floor facade does use cast iron to some extent, but the rest of the building, save for stone trim, is built entirely of brick.
Another news item we ran across, reproduced below, indicates that the building was not without a bit of excitement now and again.
BLAZING LOUNGE AND MAN FOR EMERGENCY
Hero Prevents Disastrous Fire in Mantle & Bielenberg Block Last Night
Butte Inter Mountain | December 25, 1903
A blaze that might have ended disastrously but for its discovery in time broke out in the Mantle & Bielenberg block about 9 o'clock last night. A lounge in one of the rooms, occupied by a family named O'Mara on the third floor somehow caught fire, supposedly from a lighted match thrown carelessly under it, and for a time it was thought that the building might take fire.
The lounge was picked up by a man whose name could not be learned and carried down the two flights of stairs into the street, where it continued blazing until it was practically destroyed.
The fire department was called out and easily extinguished the blaze.
From Butte Inter Mountain
MANTLE/HENDERSON & BIELENBERG BUILDING
A graceful semicircular arched entry of rough quarried stone is a striking feature of this three-story commercial/residential building that once housed the publisher of the Butte Miner. Built circa 1890 by pioneer stockman/financier N. J. Bielenberg, the first floor was remodeled in 1891 to accommodate the publishing company. By 1900, Western Union Telegraph occupied the first floor, offices were on the second floor, and the third floor contained a lodging house and a recreation hall. A sign on the building’s east side advertises the Creamery Café, a longtime favorite eatery and later tenant. Exceptional interior finishings include a beautiful tin ceiling, an open stairwell with a skylight above, maple floors, and varnished pine woodwork. The grand cast iron, brick, and stone façade with its repetitive arch motif is today a substantial reminder of Butte’s Victorian-era prosperity.
From the NRHP plaque at the building