Grocer John L. Carroll chose a prime location to build a four-family flat in 1914. Butte’s finest houses stood two blocks west, and the large, two-story Greek Revival building next door since demolished housed the Woman’s Club. Its 225 active members, all women of “good moral character,” met together to socialize and to study topics such as “the art of the Old Masters … Tennyson’s poems, practical cooking, juvenile courts, and modern Russian music.” In addition, streetcars ran frequently down Park, easing tenants’ commute. Built to match the elegance of its surroundings, the apartment house once boasted an intricately shaped Spanish-influenced parapet. Ornamental wooden brackets still decorate the front façade. Separate doors for each family offered privacy, while the second floor porch provided upstairs residents access to fresh air. These amenities made the building attractive to middle-class tenants including, in 1920, families of a newspaper manager, a mining engineer, a cigar store owner, and a soft drink parlor proprietor. These last two professions were, perhaps, less respectable than the others; cigar stores and soft drink parlors often masked speakeasies during Prohibition.
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