Butte’s voracious appetite for laborers created a huge demand for housing and sent rental rates skyrocketing beyond the means of most working folks. Real estate companies responded, platting new additions and building inexpensive, modest houses that could be purchased on time payments. One company advertised: “Slavery is abolished when you get out of the clutches of the landlord and become a home owner.” This gable front cottage, built between 1900 and 1907, is one of several popular styles of early tract housing. Decorative shingles, full-width porch, leaded glass, three-sided bay, and ornamental scrollwork are Queen Anne style elements added to dress up and individualize an otherwise modest, basic dwelling. Carpenter Peter McKenzie was an early owner who lived here briefly in 1907-1908, perhaps while finishing the interior. Not only miners but also small business owners lived in the neighborhood as demonstrated from the late 1920s until 1940, when this was the residence of wholesale grocer J. Frank McLanahan.
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