Anchoring the southwestern edge of historic Goosetown, this property nestles against the foothills of the Pintler Range. Edward J. Kelly Sr. is the earliest known occupant of the home, built circa 1900, directly on the Anaconda city limits and the Deer Lodge County line. Kelly, born in Roscommon, Ireland, came to the United States as a child. An ore miner by trade, he worked in Colorado where he married Margaret Sullivan, an Irish immigrant from County Cork. The Kellys moved to Anaconda circa 1905 where Kelly was a longtime employee in the local tram department of the Anaconda Reduction Works. The Kellys purchased this property in 1912 and raised their four sons here. The outbuildings where the family kept chickens, pigs, and horses attest to the rural nature of the neighborhood. The remains of a moonshine still, no doubt a local source of illegal spirits during Prohibition, reveal another, more clandestine, aspect of this historic property. The simple cross-gabled cottage and the house next door have sheltered five generations of the Kelly family.
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