Western Lumber Company

By Richard I. Gibson

Even after the brick ordinance went into effect mandating fire-resistant construction in Butte, the demand for lumber was still huge. Many brick buildings were still framed in wood, and most residences in the booming city were wood, or brick-veneered wood.

W.A. Clark

The Western Lumber Company was “one of the oldest and most successful” lumber companies in the city. W.A. Clark, ever with an eye to profit (and probably other motives), created the company in 1898 and was President of Western Lumber in 1905. Other officers were A.H. Wethey, Vice President; W.M. Bickford, Secretary; Harry W. McLaughlin, Treasurer; and W.W. Dunks, local manager. Like Clark, Wethey got around in business, and he was also Secretary of Clark’s Colusa-Parrot Mining & Smelting Co. with an office at 10 West Broadway and a home on the prestigious west side, at 834 West Granite. McLaughlin was a Missoula legislator whose support Clark was reportedly trying to buy—1898 was precisely when Clark was beginning his aggressive efforts to attain the U.S. Senate seat.

Walter Bickford’s law office was in the Silver Bow Block (the old one, where the parking lot is today across from the Montana Standard) and he lived in a bay-fronted five-plex at 223 North Washington Street which is gone today. William Dunks, who lived at 817 Colorado and was a bookkeeper in 1900, succeeded O.J. McConnell as local manager about 1903. Dunks continued as the local manager at least until 1928, when the Anaconda Company acquired Western Lumber from W.A. Clark’s heirs. In 1931-32, Anaconda shut the operation down.

Western Lumber together with Clark’s real estate company, Clark-Montana, were ultimately responsible for the dam on the Clark Fork and the company town that became Milltown. They operated a small railroad in the Bonner area, with 10 miles of track, from 1912-1928. The company had sawmills across western Montana, with a planing mill at Lothrop (or Lathrop), near today’s Alberton northwest of Missoula, but most of the lumber came to Butte.

Milltown dam (1908 flood)

The Western Lumber complex occupied the block bounded by Main, Porphyry, Wyoming, and Gold Streets, where Butte High School stands today. By 1916, that block included an auto repair shop on the corner of Porphyry and Wyoming, pretty much where the main entry to the school is today. There were also blacksmiths and a paint shop in the block, together with a row of at least nine alley houses on the alley that’s now between the Tripp & Dragstedt Apartments and the school.

Western Lumber acquired the Montana Lumber & Manufacturing Co., which occupied the same Main St. location in 1900, but the buildings were “vacant and not used” at that time. Western rejuvenated and expanded the Butte operation. This part of town was a sort of “lumber central” for many years. In 1888, the Silver City Lumber Company spread across a couple blocks around Gold to Platinum and Colorado to Dakota (at a time when Gold Street didn’t go through) and there was a small planning mill, the Phoenix, on Porphyry east of Main, where the Montana Lumber and Western Lumber Companies would expand.

Butte High was built in 1936-38 on the land vacated by the 1931-32 demise of the Western Lumber Company, owned at that time by the Anaconda Company.

You could probably write a book about the Western Lumber Company — so look at this post as just a tantalizing introduction.

Resources: Montana Catholic, Jan. 21, 1905; Two Rivers History; City Directories; Sanborn Maps; photo of Milltown Dam during 1908 flood via Butte CTEC.

Thomas Lavell

Ad from Souvenir History of Butte Fire Department (1901). Scan by Butte Public Library.

By Richard I. Gibson

Although Thomas Lavell is sometimes referred to as a French-Canadian (I’ve done it myself) because he was born near Ottawa (Dec. 14, 1853) and came to Montana from Quebec, his parents were both natives of Ireland who emigrated to Quebec in the early 19th Century. Twenty-one-year-old Thomas followed his brother to a small town called Pioneer, in the original Deer Lodge County, in 1874, where they worked a lumber operation. They came to Butte in 1875 or 1876 and established a sawmill and lumber dealership, reportedly providing the material for the first buildings made of sawn wood in Butte.

Lavell house at Park and Idaho. Photo by Dick Gibson.

The brothers expanded into the delivery business by buying Warfield & Hauser’s Butte Transfer Company in 1885, operating the stable at 122 East Park Street (variously known as Lavelle & Hart, Windsor Stables, and Butte Transfer Stable). Thomas ran that company and brother Geoffrey continued the lumber business, which was sold in 1895 when Geoffrey left Montana for Oregon.

Thomas Lavell’s stable—advertising “omnibuses, hacks and baggage wagons meet the arrival of all trains”—became the largest taxicab business in Montana. It was doing well enough as early as 1887 for Lavelle to build the beautiful Second Empire-style home at 301 West Park Street where he and his wife Melissa lived and entertained for decades; Melissa died in 1923 and Thomas lived there until he died in 1941.

The Transportation Hub -- 1884

Front Street, 1884. Click to enlarge.

First an update. People always ask me “How’s the book coming.” I can report that I have all the illustrations identified, and about two-thirds of the 60 I’ll use are in hand. I have about 9,000 words in a tolerable form, meaning they’ve been reviewed, edited, and tweaked about three times and will need at least three more. That’s about a quarter of the 35,000-word target. The core research for most of the rest is complete, so I’m not freaking out over my deadline (May 15). Yet.

Now, back to 1884.

By Richard I. Gibson

Front Street in 1884 had to be a busy hub, but one that was somewhat isolated from the rest of Butte, which was about a mile or so up the hill. Main and Montana didn’t reach Front Street then. Access was primarily via the branching extensions of Arizona and Utah, which then, as now, came down to the railroad terminal (Utah Northern in 1884). By combining information from the Bird’s-Eye View and the Sanborns, we can identify many of the establishments in this area in the middle 1880s.

Both sides of the railway were dominated by the Montana Lumber & Produce Company, with its mill at the right side of the illustration here (#21). The 3-story structure included the sawmill on the first level, a sash and door factory on the second, and a planing mill on the third floor. The mill even ran on Sundays and “frequently at night,” with lighting provided by kerosene lanterns (no smoking was allowed). The small buildings toward the lumber piles (in front of Bldg #21) included the boiler, a shed where shavings were collected by blowers, the iron-clad drying room, a 12,000-gallon water tank, an 18-foot-high 30,000-gallon oil tank, paint and varnish storage, and offices.

Montana Lumber’s freight offices across the tracks stored sashes, doors, wagons, paints, and oils (#2) and hay, grain, and produce (#3). East of them Kirkendall & Brown’s warehouse (#1) held buggies, and continuing west on what would become Front Street was Northwestern Forwarding Company’s warehouse (#4) with hay and grain bins, across from the saloon and billiard hall.

The 2-story boarding house, near what would become the corner of Utah and Front, was across from the Caplice, McCune & Co. station (#5) where they received and sent grain and produce to their stores in Walkerville, Butte, and elsewhere in southwest Montana. It was behind the railroad freight depot along with J.E. Richards’ oil warehouse (2-story, #6) and Dolman’s hay and grain warehouse (#7).

The passenger depot was conveniently located just a few steps from the Northwestern Hotel (#19). Building #8 along the tracks held coal and salt bins. A service building was on the spur south of the main line; the spur passed the main water tank, and you can discern the small open-air circle where engines were rotated—the predecessor to the roundhouse that eventually was built near there.

Image from 1884 Bird's-Eye View, via Library of Congress.