Entering Butte, 1939

by Richard I. Gibson

Since I did the research for a Facebook request, I thought I'd add this documentation for another of the Library of Congress images.

This photo is from summer 1939, taken by Arthur Rothstein as part of the Office of War Information / Farm Security Administration series. The location is the 1000-1100 block of East Park – East Galena Place – East Galena, where they intersect Parrot St. which is probably more or less the street behind the sign, but US Hwy 91 cut through there at an angle to the streets and this sign is likely on Hwy 91 at the city limits.

So, this is part of the East Side / East Butte (not Meaderville, not McQueen) and the area is pretty close to where the Pit viewing stand is today, or a bit toward the pit from there. The mine at far right behind the shacks is probably the Pennsylvania Mine complex, which is within the pit today. The mine in the distance, right of the word “Butte” in the sign, is probably the Anaconda Mine (also within the pit today) but I’m not sure. The East Side Volunteer Fire Station is the newer-looking building to the immediate right of the word “limit” on the sign.

This and many similar from that era are available from the Library of Congress.    

Gas station, summer 1939

This photo from the FSA-OWI program was made by Arthur Rothstein in the summer of 1939. The location is the corner of Park and Oklahoma – the gas station is at 501 East Park Street.  The mine in center background is the Moonlight Mine, and right of it on the skyline is the Anaconda Mine.

The vertical standpipe right of center says “steam baths” in vertical letters. It is behind (south of) a building on Broadway Street that contained a sauna – that was within Finntown.

The gas station building was boarded up and vacant by 1951, and was probably gone by about 1960. There is no listing in the city directories for “Consumers Oil Company” so it was either a short-lived business or came under some other name for listing purposes.

—Richard I. Gibson

“The photographs of the Farm Security Administration (FSA)-Office of War Information (OWI), transferred to the Library of Congress beginning in 1944, form an extensive pictorial record of American life between 1935 and 1944. This U.S. government photography project was headed by Roy E. Stryker, formerly an economics instructor at Columbia University, and engaged such photographers as Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, Russell Lee, Arthur Rothstein, Ben Shahn, Jack Delano, Marion Post Wolcott, Gordon Parks, John Vachon, and Carl Mydans. The project initially documented the Resettlement Administration's cash loans to individual farmers, and the agency's construction of planned suburban communities. The second stage focused on the lives of sharecroppers in the South and of migratory agricultural workers in the midwestern and western states. As the scope of the project expanded, the photographers turned to recording rural and urban conditions throughout the United States and mobilization efforts for World War II.” (From the Library of Congress web site.)

East Gagnon Street

Top: 1939. Bottom: 2011. E. Gagnon St. and Steward Mine

By Richard I. Gibson

The blog’s former background image is from the Farm Security Administration/ Office of War Information photo set acquired in 1935-44. This image was shot by Arthur Rothstein (1915-1985) in summer 1939. Robert Renouard initiated a discussion on Facebook, asking if the headframe here is the Original or the Steward—the two are nearly identical. Research and a field trip determined that the mine is the Steward and the houses in the foreground are on East Gagnon Street. 

The second row of houses visible in the middle background on East Woolman are all gone today (some others do survive on East Woolman), but the three homes in the foreground are still there. The combined image above (click to enlarge) shows a December 2011 photo from nearly the same vantage as the 1939 photo. Porches are gone, windows and chimneys have been altered, but the buildings remain. All were built in the mid- to late 1890s.

The mine building east (to right) of the headframe is the dry (change house). The dry was in almost the same position at both the Original and Steward Mines, and both are gone today.

More than 300 excellent photos of Butte from 1939-42 are in the public domain through this program. A good many of them will appear in my upcoming book, Lost Butte: Preservation and Demolition in the Nation’s Largest National Historic Landmark District, due out in Summer 2012.

“The photographs of the Farm Security Administration (FSA)-Office of War Information (OWI), transferred to the Library of Congress beginning in 1944, form an extensive pictorial record of American life between 1935 and 1944. This U.S. government photography project was headed by Roy E. Stryker, formerly an economics instructor at Columbia University, and engaged such photographers as Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, Russell Lee, Arthur Rothstein, Ben Shahn, Jack Delano, Marion Post Wolcott, Gordon Parks, John Vachon, and Carl Mydans. The project initially documented the Resettlement Administration's cash loans to individual farmers, and the agency's construction of planned suburban communities. The second stage focused on the lives of sharecroppers in the South and of migratory agricultural workers in the midwestern and western states. As the scope of the project expanded, the photographers turned to recording rural and urban conditions throughout the United States and mobilization efforts for World War II.” (From the Library of Congress web site.)