Anticipating construction of the Milwaukee Railroad depot on Montana Avenue, prominent Butte real estate developer John Rowe established the J. H. Rowe Addition in 1915. By 1916, with the depot well underway, Rowe had sold more than half the lots and the subdivision contained twenty-three new homes. On lots that didn’t sell to private owners, Rowe hired contractors to build modest bungalows, including this Colonial Revival style, brick home, constructed in 1919. Its arched-entrance portico, grouped Doric columns, and clipped gherkin-head roof offered an attractive variation on the many Craftsman style homes in the neighborhood. Many skilled railroad and mining company workers and their families were short-term residents. Anaconda Company electrician James J. Rockefeller and his wife Katherine—an active South Side Democratic Club member—lived here in 1929. Other occupants included cigar store salesman John R. Colahan and family in 1930 and Anaconda Company Mine (ACM) ore sampler Walter Bentley and family in 1936-37. ACM clerk John Nankervis, his wife Ruth, and children were longtime residents from 1945 until the mid-1980s.
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