Filed Under Butte

825 West Mercury Street

Butte National Historic Landmark District

Wealthy banker Nesbit Rochester bought this bay-fronted brick building as an investment property during the summer of 1906. The building was listed among other “large homes” for sale that summer for $4,500. Nesbit and family lived just a few doors down at 845 West Mercury. Tastefully designed two-story brick buildings and larger apartment buildings proliferated in Butte at the turn of the twentieth century to house the city’s exploding population. Large or growing middle- and upper-middle class families could occupy both floors as a single-family home, while widows, small families, or investors could divide the floors into three-room apartments. In 1909, widow Mary Kelly lived here with her sons, deputy county assessor Thomas Kelly and deputy sheriff John P. Kelly. By 1923, Mary and sons had moved to Park Street, and her daughter and son-in-law, Mary and Malcolm McLeod, were in residence. The building’s distinctive flat-arch clinker brick lintels above each window and relief diamond pattern belt course at the roofline reflected the upper-middle-class status of its occupants and fit in well among its decorative Queen Anne style neighbors.

Images

825 West Mercury
825 West Mercury facade Source: Montana Historical Society Creator: Julian Boughton and Martha Kohl Date: July 2022
825 West Mercury Street
825 West Mercury Street 825 West Mercury Street (PAc 91-51 B1 RCA09 F06). Front to side view of the house, facing north to northwest on West Mercury Street. B&W. Source: Montana State Historic Preservation Office from the Photograph Archives at the Montana Historical Society Creator: Chris Amos Date: 1984

Location

825 West Mercury Street, Butte, Montana | Private

Metadata

The Montana National Register Sign Program, “825 West Mercury Street,” Historic Montana, accessed March 28, 2024, https://historicmt.org/items/show/2802.