Realtor and home builder Charles Passmore, who sold houses on “easy installments,” built this Queen Anne style cottage at the turn of the twentieth century. Brick veneer, fish-scale shingles, and turned porch supports ornament the four-room house, advertised as “warm and light,” “modern” (meaning it had indoor plumbing), and with a “fine lawn and garden.” Early owner James Tretheway, who worked for the Anaconda Company as a miner, and later as a surface boss, sued the city twice for damages relating to flooding. The second time, in 1909, he claimed that his lot became a reservoir in rainy weather because of the way the street department had filled in and regraded Antimony. In 1910, he rented the house to Albert Stephens, a blacksmith at the mines, who lived here with his wife Annie and their six living children, ages seven to nineteen. Clerk at the Montana Hardware Company William Wragg and his wife Elizabeth purchased the home by 1914. Elizabeth was an active Daughters of the American Revolution member and regularly hosted cottage prayer meetings here for the First Presbyterian Church.
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