Anaconda Commercial Historic District
Backed by the powerful San Francisco syndicate of Hearst, Haggin and Tevis, Marcus Daly built the world’s largest smelter (combined upper and lower works) on Warm Springs Creek between 1883 and 1889. Along with the smelters, Daly envisioned a substantial city and filed the original townsite plat June 25, 1883. While smelter construction got underway that summer, people arrived faster than building supplies. The first boarding houses and saloons opened in tents. A railroad spur soon linked the town to the Anaconda Mine in Butte. By the time the furnaces of the Upper Works fired up in the fall of 1884, Anaconda’s 80 buildings included seven hotels and boarding houses and twelve saloons. At the end of 1885, Anaconda’s reduction works had a payroll of 1,700. The Anaconda Copper Mining Company dominated the local economy. Company subsidiaries built and maintained the city water supply, electric power system, and street railway. Daly and his associates established key commercial enterprises including the major bank, retailer D. J. Hennessy’s local company store, a race track, the highly acclaimed Montana Standard, and the Montana Hotel. Modeled after New York City’s Hoffman House, this premier hotel represented Daly’s political ambition as he promoted Anaconda in the race for state capital. Daly was bitterly disappointed when the city lost the capital race in 1894, but Anaconda survived as a vibrant piece of the Montana mosaic. Significant for its labor history and ethnic diversity, this unique company town was a place where private enterprise also flourished. Elaborate Victorian-era business blocks and the more utilitarian façades of the early twentieth century are testimony to a vigorous business community.
Morse/Palace Block
Anaconda Commercial Historic District
Thomas Silha and sisters Mary Vollenweider and Margaret Morse hired architect Joseph White to design this commercial/residential building in 1911. The $20,000 brick building originally featured identical storefronts with glass display windows topped by prismatic glass panels that reflected daylight…
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Furst Block
Anaconda Commercial Historic District
French immigrant and wealthy Deer Lodge Valley dairyman John Furst built this brick store and boardinghouse for $5,000 in 1895. Just steps away from Marcus Daly’s new bank and the fine Montana Hotel, the Furst Block fit in well amongst its high-style neighbors. The original street-level façade was…
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Marcus Daly & Company Bank
Anaconda Commercial Historic District
Marcus Daly and W. L. Hoge founded Anaconda’s first bank in 1883. Hoge, Anaconda’s first mayor, sold his interest in the bank to Daly in 1895. The institution became the Marcus Daly & Company Bank and later, the First National Bank of Anaconda. Expansion of the Anaconda Company smelter during…
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Pay Office Hall
Anaconda Commercial Historic District
Wholesale liquor dealer John V. Collins commissioned this handsome Renaissance Revival style commercial and boardinghouse building in 1897. The store was home to several saloons during its first twenty years. Workers at Marcus Daly’s Anaconda Company Smelter cashed their paychecks next door at…
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Electric Light Building
Anaconda Commercial Historic District
A heavy metal cornice, cast iron columns, and a metal frieze still embellish this building, constructed in 1895. Two cast-iron oriel windows once also graced the upper story. The Anaconda Company’s foundry produced the decorative metal front, a prime example of the many iron fronts that once…
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Ida Block
Anaconda Commercial Historic District
Anaconda grew practically overnight. Platted in June 1883, Anaconda already boasted eighty buildings by December 1884, including a wood-frame clothing store on this corner, built by pioneering Jewish merchant Wolfe (William) Copinus. In 1888, Copinus hired architect D. F. McDevitt to design this…
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Lee Pleasant Driver's Saloon and Club Rooms
Anaconda Commercial Historic District
After attending Fisk University in Tennessee, Lee Pleasant Driver enlisted in the Twenty-fifth U.S. Colored Infantry in 1888. The twenty-five-year-old private, who soon advanced to corporal, served at Forts Keogh (Miles City) and Missoula. He was one of the famed “buffalo soldiers,” who patrolled…
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109 East Commercial Avenue
Anaconda Commercial Historic District
Benjamin Mahan, pioneer businessman and respected Deer Lodge County Commissioner, opened his first paint and wallpaper store on Main Street in 1885. He later moved to this one-story brick building in April 1916. The store’s distinctive buff-colored brick combined with the contrasting white brick…
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Purity Dairy
Anaconda Commercial Historic District
W. H. Dunnigan and partners opened the Purity Dairy and the Purity Apartments (upstairs) in this brick commercial building in 1916. Purity was the first dairy processing plant in Anaconda to pasteurize raw milk brought in from area farmers. French microbiologist Louis Pasteur developed the process…
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O'Leary's Feed Store
Anaconda Commercial Historic District
Butte architect James Calloway Teague designed this commercial and warehouse building in 1915 to house James O’Leary’s Feed Store. Teague’s design is simple in comparison to the more exuberant buildings on Park and Commercial Avenues. Nevertheless, soldier (standing) courses above and below…
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Carpenters Union Hall
Anaconda Commercial Historic District
Anaconda workers unionized early to promote their interests. The United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners Local 88 formed in Anaconda in 1889 with nine charter members. Its original bylaws committed the union to working “to replace the present wage system by cooperative industry.” It also…
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219 East Commercial Avenue
Anaconda Commercial Historic District
In 1888, one- and two-story, wood-frame commercial buildings filled almost the entire block. Constructed circa 1890 on the block’s last vacant lot, this store was home to McKinnon and MacKay’s grocery. An expanse of brick with three recessed panels tops the building, making it look taller and more…
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Cohen Block/Park Motors
Anaconda Commercial Historic District
This building began as a one-story, wood-frame grocery store on Main Street in 1883. In 1885, owner David Cohen Sr. sided it with brick veneer, giving it a more permanent appearance. Soon after, a fire broke out, destroying nearly everything on the west side of Main, except for Cohen’s brick-clad…
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City Hall
Anaconda Commercial Historic District
Copper magnate Marcus Daly had great expectations for Anaconda when the town was platted in 1883, hoping one day the town would become Montana’s capital. It was with that goal in mind that plans for a magnificent city hall were conceived. Architects Lane and Reber of Butte, winners of a competition…
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MacCallum and Cloutier Block
Anaconda Commercial Historic District
Until the arrival of large discount grocery chains after World War II, numerous grocery businesses thrived in Anaconda. Some merchants sold a vast array of goods, and others specialized in dry goods, produce, or meat. Many groceries catered to specific ethnic groups. Thorsen Bros. grocery next door…
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Thorsen Brothers Grocery
Anaconda Commercial Historic District
The well-preserved Thorsen Brothers Grocery building is a classic example of an early-twentieth-century commercial building. The decorative brick parapet made the building look larger and offered ample room for signage, while tall display windows brought in daylight and provided a spacious platform…
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Barich Block
Anaconda Commercial Historic District
Austrian immigrant George Barich came to Anaconda from Butte in 1883 to work at the smelter. He later turned to commercial business and, in 1892, commissioned builders Daniel Dwyer and John Cosgrove to construct the first floor of this block. Barich opened a saloon in the building, which he…
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Fuller Drug Company
Anaconda Commercial Historic District
The stepped brick parapet boasts a concrete nameplate, “Fuller Drug Company,” harkening back to this building’s long service as a drugstore. The sleek, black tile siding on the building’s first story reflects its next incarnation as the Highland Theater. A restaurant and rooming house in 1898, the…
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Imperial Meat Market
Anaconda Commercial Historic District
The Imperial Meat Market specialized in fresh meat, sausage, game, fish, and oysters when D. D. Walker and Israel Gibbs opened it in a wood-frame building on this lot in 1889. Shop foreman Albert Bourbonniere, in partnership with Big Hole Valley rancher John Wenger, bought the business by 1905.…
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408 East Park Avenue
Anaconda Commercial Historic District
Anaconda Copper Mining Company carpenter Daniel R. Beck built this small brick building in 1896. He lived in one half and rented out the other half. Beck was an early resident of Anaconda, arriving in 1883 when it was still a hodgepodge of shacks and tents. After Beck died in 1901, the building…
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Schmidt Plumbing
Anaconda Commercial Historic District
Contractor John Jacobson built this brick store and boardinghouse in 1915, during a time of rapid commercial and residential expansion in Anaconda. Downtown Anaconda property owners developed every square foot of their lots during this boom, remodeling storefronts, adding second-story lodging, or…
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Davidson Building
Anaconda Commercial Historic District
Architect Jonathon Barlett designed this marvelous business block as an investment property for T. C. Davidson in 1896. Davidson, an Ohio native and Civil War veteran, came to Montana in 1879. In the early 1890s, Davidson moved from his nearby ranch into town, where he later served as both city…
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Adams'/Strain's Department Store
Anaconda Commercial Historic District
Contractor A. M. Walker constructed this simple one-story brick commercial block for department store owner S. C. Adams in 1902. Though Adams did not pay to embellish the exterior of the building, he did spend lavishly on advertising and events. His window displays included oriental rugs and…
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National Bank of Anaconda
Anaconda Commercial Historic District
After building the St. Jean Block next door in 1893, Dr. Felix St. Jean again hired respected Anaconda mason John Cosgrove to build this annex building in 1897. Cosgrove, an old friend of Marcus Daly’s, also built the foundations of the Upper Works of the Anaconda Company smelter and many prominent…
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St. Jean Block/Smith Building
Anaconda Commercial Historic District
Dr. Felix L. St. Jean and brick mason Joe Cosgrove commissioned local architect Herman Kemna to design this building in 1893. Though later owners remodeled the first-floor façade and renamed the building, the second story remains among the best preserved and most elaborate cast-iron façades in…
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Parrot Block
Anaconda Commercial Historic District
Prosperous Deer Lodge Valley rancher George Parrot invested $13,000 to build the Parrot Block in 1896. The first story of this well-appointed Queen Anne style commercial and boardinghouse building originally featured tall, plate-glass display windows topped by a wide grid of small prism-glass…
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206-208 East Park Avenue
Anaconda Commercial Historic District
Simple one-story brick commercial blocks became popular with investors in the early twentieth century. By economizing on ornamentation and expensive second floor residential fixtures like kitchen cabinets and indoor plumbing, a landowner could develop a large lot with a modest upfront investment.…
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213 East Park Avenue
Anaconda Commercial Historic District
The block between Oak and Cherry streets was jam-packed with single-family dwellings and boarding houses during Anaconda’s early years. Between 1884 and 1888, Mike and Annie Leonard built their one-story, wood-frame house facing the street, and then built two small rental houses on the back lot.…
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119-125 East Park Avenue
Anaconda Commercial Historic District
Though altered over many years to look like three separate buildings, this early 1900s brick commercial block is actually one large building (extending to the corner of Oak). Originally divided by interior partition walls, the building hosted three and sometimes four separate businesses inside. By…
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Weiss Block
Anaconda Commercial Historic District
In October 1900, German tailors William Weiss and John Zilinsky invested in this commercial building. They paid an exorbitant $9,500 for three lots behind Marcus Daly’s bank, where they constructed the first story of this two-story building. Early tenants, the Great Northern Express Co. (parcel…
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