Owsley Block

Butte National Historic Landmark District

By The Montana National Register Sign Program

Owsley Block, Butte View of a horse-drawn wagon in the street and a dozen men standing on the sidewalk at 43 and 45 East Park Street, Butte, Montana. Sign on side of wagon reads, Boesmann Bros. and Co., Wholesale, Liquors and Cigars, and wagon is in front of their store. Other business at 45 E. Park St. is Hoffman Hotel and Restaurant, Burgard & Simon, propr's. Source: PAc 946-106, Montana Legacy Collection, Montana Historical Society Research Center Photograph Archives, Helena, MT. Creator: Unknown photographer Date: ca. 1898

A pair of two-story projecting bays, rounded balconies, and slender columns with ornate bracketing give this former hotel a delightful nineteenth-century charm. Built in 1889 by early settler and former Butte mayor William Owsley, the Owsley Block housed the Hoffman Hotel which offered rooms to let on the upper two floors and ground-floor commercial space. A variety of early tenants included a drugstore, liquor store, restaurant, the Scotch Woolen Mills tailor shop, and Albert Keene shoes. In 1929, Hoffman’s still offered upstairs lodging. The bays have been faithfully restored to their turn-of-the-twentieth-century appearance and “mock” windows painted on the building’s sides indicate original window placement.