Built by 1889, this six-room, hipped-roof cottage was primarily home to miners and their families. Located behind the Mountain Con Mine, the house likely shook as railcars loaded with ore passed just to the south. The mine operated twenty-four hours a day, so the sound of hoist engines and shift whistles were ever present. For the families who made this their home, the mine also resonated in other ways. In addition to being called “The Richest Hill on Earth,” Butte was also known as the “City of Widows and Orphans” because mining was such dangerous work. Owner John Toward died at age fifty-nine of miner’s consumption in 1905, leaving wife Caroline and four children ages twenty-three, twenty-one, nineteen, and sixteen. His own father Richard had died in 1898 at age forty-nine. Caroline continued in residence until 1917. In 1910, her grown children lived with her, likely contributing wages earned as a stenographer, messenger, and miner to help support the family. Irish Catholic miner Patrick Dennehy and wife Catherine purchased the home by 1927. They raised six children here, and Catherine remained in residence into the 1960s.
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