Spokane Cafe, 1939; Arthur Rothstein; Library of Congress
The Spokane Cafe was a perambulator. Opened by brothers Sam and John Kenoffel in 1901, it operated from various spots along Main Street over the first 30 years of the 20th century. You would find it at 111 S. Main in 1912. The first mention of it in the Butte papers was a sale listing from that year, and it remained until 1918. By June of 1919, it had relocated north to 17 South Main. And it wandered from there.
Relocation notice; Butte Miner; March, 1919
Candlelight dining, from a bucket
The restaurant boomed from 1919 through 1923. It identified with the Butte miners, and specialized in providing lunch buckets. Spokane buckets were popular for their high quality and low price.
Miners lunch break; 1905
After his shift, the miner dropped off his bucket at the Spokane. The restaurant washed and steam sterilized the bucket. It was then loaded up with “good juicy wholesome meats in sandwiches and the very best kind of pies and cake and fruit.” When it was picked up in the morning, the miner paid $0.30 for the ready to go bucket. Quick, efficient, cheap and, by all accounts, pretty tasty.
The way the lunch bucket worked was a product of long Cornish evolution. The bucket bottom held a miner’s coffee. A tray which fit snug over the coffee held a pasty or sandwich, and a second tray above that contained pie or cake. A lid, often with a cup, fit on top to hold it all together. In the tunnels, a miner would light his candle and suspend the bucket above it, to keep the coffee warm until lunch.
Labor Bulletin; December 30, 1919
Most of the Spokane’s advertising was through the labor and union associated newspapers of Butte; the Daily Miner and Labor Bulletin. Sam’s loyalties were clear, and he consistently refused to prepare a lunch bucked for any strikebreaker. Sympathies for the working man extended to easy terms for takeaway meals.
Butte Miner June 30,1918
Booths for ladies, rooms for gents
The cafe was profitable enough that in 1921, it replaced its single mammoth counter with a smaller counter with stools, and a long row of booths opposite. Booths were considered essential for female clientele, adding some buffer from the uninhibited male hassle up at the bar. The nearby Creamery Cafe heralded “Booths For Ladies” on a large sign painted on its exterior brick wall.
17 South Main also housed rental rooms upstairs from the cafe. The Kenoffels boasted of their cleanliness, hot and cold water and steam heat for as little as $3.00 per week.
Labor Bulletin; October 14,1920
For those not part of the daily bucket brigade, what was dining-in like at the Spokane Cafe? Well, in 1921, here is a representative $0.35 (choice of menu) daily lunch menu:
Soup
Cream of Chicken
Boiled Fried Ox Tongue with New Spinach
Entrees
Fresh Salmon Cutlets with Tomato Sauce
Lamb Fricassee with Garden Peas
Fresh Fried Hog with Hominy
Roasts
Prime Ribs of Beef au jus
Sliced Pineapple
Mashed Potatoes
Tea or Coffee
Slide on down to the Spokane Cafe
Built around its own mines on a fairly steep slope, uptown Butte has always been referred to as two communities; that of the “hill” and downhill on the “flats.” The Spokane Cafe was unapologetically hill, with the odd mishaps a slope can bring. There were a number of vehicles with dubious brakes that couldn’t stay still. This, in 1922:
Butte Miner; May 28,1922
123 North Main Street on the downslope
A third move
Demonstrating both its robust business and poor timing, the Spokane Cafe moved to a larger fancier building at 123 North Main in July of 1929. This was the result of the Metals Bank’s decision to tear down 17 South Main, adjacent to the bank, and expand its operating space south. The bank cancelled these plans when the Great Depression hit. The Spokane Cafe in its new digs remained affordable and popular.
Another note on 123 North Main. Beginning in 1905, the upstairs portion of the building housed the Women’s Protective Union, which organized hotel and restaurant employees. It was the nation’s first union for women, begun in 1893 so that women would not be “behind their brothers in demanding their rights.”
The Kenoffel brothers were both born in England. John left Butte in 1934 and lived in Oregon and Los Angeles, until his death in 1955. Along with brother Sam, he ran the Spokane until 1929 and opened Kenoffel’s Cafe Beautiful (later K Cafe) at 43 West Park Street in 1923.
Interior of Kenoffel’s. Butte Silver Bow Archives
A place for the ladies
Kenoffel’s introduced a whole new elegant outlook. It’s a long way from miners buckets to peacock feathers, but it’s funny what a little time and ambition will do.
Women were gaining influence, civilizing the ‘wide open town,’ and introducing some decorum to uptown. It’s not difficult to imagine ladies from the WPU upstairs, or those attending the Butte Business College across the street to take a meal at the Cafe Beautiful.
Full page ad; Butte Daily Post; June 7, 1923
Kenoffel’s in 1923; Butte Silver Bow Archives
After John left, Sam ran Kenoffel’s, then the K Cafe through the Great Depression. As late as 1936, he and new partner Neil Arkels continued putting up lunches for the hungry miners of Butte.
Montana Standard; September 5, 1936
Restaurants play out much like mines
After over four decades in the restaurant business, Sam made the decision to move with his family to Burbank, California in 1943. With that, the Spokane Cafe, now at 30 South Main went on the block. It failed to sell as a going concern, so fixtures, even plates and silverware were offered for piecemeal sale. Sam Kenoffel died in 1971 at the age of 88.
To characterize the Kenoffel brothers, they were their work, and that work was well appreciated by the city. The Butte Miner of September 9, 1923 provided a tidy summary of both men:
Sam Kenoffel is often referred to by his brother John as “the man of finance,” for it is he who has figured and planned the buying of foodstuffs on a basis that has made possible a remarkable service in remarkable food at ordinary prices.
John Kenoffel is king of the people’s appetites. His menus, his supervision, his training of the efficient help has added much to the enviable reputation that Kenoffel Brothers enjoy as premier restauranteurs.
It’s hard for a Butte person to read about the Kenoffel brothers without wondering which one was nicknamed “Awful.” The answer appears in the next essay: https://lafayettesquarearchives.com/?p=4003
Resources
Various stories came from the Montana Standard, Butte Daily Post, Labor Bulletin, and Butte Miner newspapers.
Ellen Baumler was a resourceful Montana historian who provided what I know of lunch bucket dynamics. She was an interpretive historian with the Montana Historical Society, and hosted a good blog, Montana Moments. http://ellenbaumler.blogspot.com/2013/04/a-miners-lunch.html
Kenoffel’s labor union loyalty from Copper Camp; Montana Writers Project; 1943; p.252
Butte photographic legend C. Owen Smithers took a remarkable photo of a mule train from about 1890. The cargo represents two forces that pushed this mining town forward in its early days – beer and dynamite.
Titled “Freighting beer and dynamite to Butte”
For over eighty years of underground mining, Butte, Montana operated independent of sunlight. The need for metal outstripped the town’s desire for a more normal cadence and three shifts per day kept it awake around the clock. Twentieth century Butte was served by its uptown businesses, many of which also ran on no particular time schedule. Into the 21st century, one could climb up into the Pekin Restaurant for dinner at 2 a.m. The M&M bar famously had no locks on the front door, as it fed the hungry and nursed the thirsty at all hours.
Bar boom to bust
Butte had bars aplenty. In terms of bars per capita, its only competitor was Anaconda, twenty-five miles down the road.
To quench its collective thirst, four breweries operated in the Mining City, up until prohibition. Of the Tivoli, Centennial, Olympia and Butte breweries, only the lattermost survived the prohibition era. Butte drank in bulk, and many kids were dispatched to the nearest bar for a 64 ounce growler of lager to bring back home.
In 1910, the Butte Evening News reported:
“on warm afternoons in the summer many a barefooted little girl walks into the saloon and deposits her 15 cents, unconscious of the contaminating atmosphere. (As) her mother entertains a group of housewives, debating the latest scandal, the amber fluid takes the place of the afternoon tea of their more pretentious society cousins. And the little barefooted girl drinks her share.”
Incorporated in 1867, Butte claimed over 100 saloons within twenty years. Byron E. Cooney of the Montana American counted 247 bars by the time Prohibition set in. Adding unlicensed venues, bars probably totaled over 300 in the area. By the mid 1960s, Butte had settled considerably, and the number dwindled to fewer than 100. The closure of the underground mines and exodus of miners left the city with around 80 bars in 1994. That still seems like a healthy number of watering holes for a town of about 30,000. A map from 2008 showing the predominance of bars (red) to groceries (yellow) shows that western Montana continues holding to its historical priorities.
Without the miners, Butte was in a pickle as to how the town could continue to support so many taverns. The Montana Standard reported on March 23 of 1994 that a police sting had caught 50 bars serving to underage customers. The sheriff was “extremely disappointed” as only 26 of the 76 bars checked complied with the “under 21” law. This operation only went on for one month. A later juvenile task force composed of undercover officers in 1996 discovered drinkers as young as 13-15 in Butte bars.
The law of unintended consequences
Prohibition of alcohol began with passage of the 18th amendment in 1920. A full six years later, in 1926, a federal judge simultaneously shut down 55 Butte drinking establishments, including roadhouses, soft drink parlors, groceries and residences. The law had turned a blind eye toward miners’ widows for whom alcohol sales formed their only means of support.
Outlawing liquor simply made drinking a more clandestine activity, and stimulated production from illegal stills. The Italians of Butte welcomed shipments of grapes by the actual boxcar load. Roadhouses and speakeasies thrived, and these alternate gathering places proved welcoming to customers of both sexes. Breaking the law in this way developed a kind of thrilling cachet. The Butte bars largely recast themselves as soda fountains, keeping their more potent products easily available to regulars. Everyone seemed to get by.
Naming names
A cursory survey of prominent Butte bars over the past century includes 4 North Main, M&M, Club 13, Friendly Tavern, Scandia Bar, Vals Alpine, Milwaukee, Klapan’s Corner, Met, Five Mile Bar, Fountain, Original Mug Saloon, Star Saloon, US Bar, Alley Cat, Pay Day, Frozen Inn, The Beer Can, Phileen’s, the Sump, ElMar Lounge, D and M, Collar and Elbow, Elite Saloon, Alibi Inn, 101 Bar, the Q.T., Tip Top Tavern, Bismarck, Classic Bar, Wigwam, Vegas Club, U&I Cocktail Lounge, Shillelagh Tavern, Big Butte Tavern, House of Fong, Tivoli Saloon, Helsinki, Bucket of Blood, Cesspool, Atlantic, California, Midget, Thistle, Tammany Jack’s, Shanty, DeLuxe, Harmon’s, Half-way House, Board of Trade, Silver Tip, Dry Gulch Saloon, Bud’s Tavern, New Deal, Speedway, South Side Athletic Club, Mom’s Cellar
Calusa Bar; World Museum of Mining.
Loading Zone, Club Inn, Cabin, Peppermint Lounge, Al’s, Cote’s, Tracy’s, Casne’s, Northern, Oscar’s, Scoop, Jack Parker’s, Eagle, Pacific, Montana, New Arizona Bar, Maloney’s Bar, Acoma Lounge, Boyles, Barrel House, Harringtons, Sam’s Place, McGrath’s Tavern, Piszers Palace, Pine Tree, Gold Rush Casino, Big 4, COD, Ocean Bar, Irish Times, Clifford’s, Main Street Lounge, Shooters Pub, Rumpus Room, Swiss Home, Cheery Lounge, Cave Bar, Palm Garden,
M& M and Arcade Lounge; ca.1939
Lost Week Inn, VuVilla, Pair A Dice Bar, Cavalier Lounge, Centennial, Pittsmont, Green’s, Tivoli, Leggat, Stockman, Copper King, Rube’s Tavern, Fitchen’s Exchange, J &M, Luigis, Orpheum, ABC and Burke’s. The latter two were in Butte’s red light district. A 1910 article described them thusly: “At Burke’s and the ABC dancing lasts until morning and the girls are very homely and badly painted and most of the men wear hob-nailed shoes and jumpers and need a bath.”
The Atlantic claimed the longest (92 foot) bar in America, and the Midget had the shortest (14 foot) in Silver Bow County. Regardless of bar length, men stood shoulder to shoulder at many of these establishments.
Feeding a thirsty spirit
Bars could be hybrid places too. Several of the seedier joints had a space in the back known as a pass out room. There, a patron could sleep part of his bender off while his friends continued to drink. Many saloons sold cigars and candy along with liquor, helping men soften their reception at home after leaving the bar.
By Western tradition, the saloon keeper wore many hats, including counselor and bookie. Among the first public buildings constructed, the saloon served as a city hall, casino, fraternal lodge, dance floor, theater, bank, post office and employment agency. And cafe to boot.
Free Butte saloon lunches 1901, 1905, 1908
Many of the uptown bars in Butte offered free lunches. They were popular enough for the Butte Miner of Christmas Day 1913 to observe that churches were beginning to adopt the practice. The Miner suggested “a little something to wash it down with” would speed its acceptance there.
Butte Miner; Mar 29,1908
Butte Daily Post; August 17,1906
The Depression era Montana Writers Project wrote in Copper Camp that a complimentary smorgasbord was standard saloon practice at that time, “a help yourself arrangement and everything was free. The only requisite was that the diner have purchased a glass of beer.”
If not completely gratis, some of the drink/food offerings were compelling. The Arcade bar, the one on Utah Street, advertised “a plate of soup and a schooner of beer” for 12 1/2 cents. With that, “owner Emil Weinberg will get you a speckled cigar to aid digestion. He gives the boys a lunch that is equal to a dinner.”
Of course, the expression “there is no free lunch,” is rooted in fact. The idea was to feed you cheap and pour you dear. A man with a full stomach doesn’t have as much incentive to head home after a drink with the boys. This riled up the women’s temperance movement, and in 1912 they lobbied the Butte city council to prohibit the free food. The ladies claimed their men went to have lunch at the bar, and began drinking while there. The day would tend to slip away.
A clever barkeeper countered that, “a man in the ‘down and out club,’ hungry and desperate, will go into a saloon, eat a free lunch, satisfy his hunger and with this satisfaction disappears all incentive for going out and holding up someone, which in many cases results in murder.” This caused the council to delay decision for a week in order to investigate further. Free lunch fell somewhere between a social evil and a crime preventive.
The John O’Farrell
The John (Shawn, if you prefer) O’Farrell is a drink also known as a boilermaker, served and billed in a manner peculiar to Butte. Perhaps the name was a form of tribute to copper king Marcus Daly’s son-in-law and early partner in the Alice mine operation. O’Farrell died in 1903, and Daly honored him with an elaborately sad tombstone at St. Patrick’s Cemetery.
An early reference is in the Butte Evening News of July 21, 1909. That article described it as “a drink of whiskey followed by a full glass of beer, sold only to miners coming off shift.” Its distribution seemed limited to the bars north of Broadway. The John O’Farrell became a hard rock miner’s staple; two drinks for the price of one. He qualified for it by virtue of the miner’s clothes he wore and the lunch box he carried.
“The drink combination possesses a uniquely reviving effect on a man just emerging from eight hours of incarceration” in the mine. At the time, the paper estimated that 90 percent of men returning from the tunnels would take one John O’Farrell – and only one.
The man’s dirty work clothes and lunch bucket verified a miner’s qualifications for the drink.
A year later, the Butte Evening News reported on the odd protocol surrounding the John O’Farrell:
“The bartender often speaks no word; the customers say nothing and no money changes hands. A whiskey bottle is set out and a big 16 ounce glass of beer is drawn. The man takes a drink of whiskey, drains the glass of beer and walks out. Probably 1,000 miners in Butte drink one John O’Farrell every 24 hours.”
Today, the paired drink is better and more widely known as a boilermaker. So is a Purdue University student, but for a more occupational reason. It’s also variously called a Sean O’Farrell or Shawn O’Farrell, but early newspaper references stick with “John.” Even a webpage for National Boilermaker Day credits its origin to Butte, Montana.
When the men leave, now fortified for the evening ahead, “the bartender turns and charges up the drinks on little tabs.” One barkeep said, “that man drank a John O’Farrell in my house every day for seven years without ever putting a cent on the bar. He has never missed a pay day, and always takes up his tabs”
Picking up the tabs
A ‘bit,’ as in “two bits, four bits, six bits a dollar” came down from when the Spanish real was a widespread currency. The real was worth an eighth of a dollar, as in pieces of eight. Eight reals, or bits made a Spanish dollar. Therefore, an eighth, or bit was worth 12.5 cents. In Butte, there were bars where a 16 ounce draft beer cost two bits. These were the ones that tended towards the free lunch and professional clientele. The one bit bars generally catered to the drinker unconcerned about much beyond the bottom of his mug.
Splitting the difference, Walker’s Bar devised a cost tactic that proved popular. In addition to a generous free lunch, Walker would charge 15 cents for a man’s first beer, giving him 2.5 cents credit toward his next drink. That made a bargain of the second schooner at a mere ten cents. Two bit treatment for a single bit beer guaranteed a longer stay at the inn.
Games of chance and politics
With reduced inhibitions, risky behavior doesn’t seem so inappropriate. This is why the red light district of cities was generally amid a load of saloons, and why bars sometimes made easy money from gambling on the premises. The M&M in Butte had a long back room running poker games. There was also keno, a chinese bingo/lottery game adapted to American players by the Lydon brothers of Butte’s Crown Cigar Store. Betting on baseball games and prizefights while in progress was also popular. Several bars used stock tickers to update rounds and scores, tracking updates on mounted chalkboards.
Many options existed for separating men from money in this ‘wide open town.’ The working definition of this in the West was a place where a man could hire a prostitute, get a drink, or place a bet at any hour. Butte’s WPA city guide from 1937 stated that one could easily find a game of faro-bank, roulette, craps, poker, panguingue, blackjack, keno (aka skill ball or fascination.) There were also punchboards available on request from behind the bar.
Every so often, a brief reform spirit would mobilize the Butte police into a series of raids, with local politicians expressing surprise at the extent of the problem. Bar owners were cited, fines were paid, and the games resumed when the heat cooled.
Back room of the M&M in Butte
Saloons were also popular spots for the delivery of political speeches. No-one, apparently, picked up his own bar tab on election day. The machine kept its faithful voters well oiled.
Walker’s Bar; April 8, 1933, slightly before the Prohibition law changed to allow 3.2% beer.
Dale Williams, director of the World Museum of Mining in 1974, claimed that the only Butte mayor ever impeached was Lewis Duncan, Butte’s lone Socialist party mayor. The grounds were that Duncan wanted to close all the city’s bars and houses of prostitution.
Running the joint
Frank Hock worked in the mines until he developed lung disease. He survived this, plus Omaha Beach on D-Day. A tough guy, he said of his time in the tavern business, “You made good money running a bar, but you had to stay about half-drunk to do it.”
Bars were prone to altercations between and occasionally among customers. The barkeeper had to act quickly to clear out the combatants and limit property damage. Saloons were also prone to hold ups, especially if they had a set closing time. Around 1910 the Pine Tree Tavern gained a reputation for being robbed of small amounts several times a year. Complained a long-time customer, “We don’t get held up much any more. This town ain’t what it used to be.”
It took a tough guy to run a rough place. Butte was heavily Irish, and those folks worked hard and drank the same. Mary Murphy in her social examination of Butte wrote that the ‘Sean O’Farrell’, a whisky with beer chaser served two purposes: the whiskey cut the rock dust from an Irish miner’s lungs, and the beer slacked the thirst of eight hours labor in a hot drift. “Two of them made a new man of the miner, and called for a third for the new man.”
Butte kicks up its heels
The 18th amendment prohibited alcohol sales. and led in short order to the 19th, giving women the vote and changing the course of male-dominated America. This was a double whammy to the clubhouse atmosphere of saloons.
Prior to this, taverns were generally, and often officially male only enterprises. It was one thing to be busted for gambling, but another to be an uncompensated host to prostitution. Women drank, but at home, with the children often running to the pub for a growler to go. I
As Prohibition made all drinkers technical law breakers, gender no longer mattered as much, and women began filtering into the speakeasies and roadhouses around Butte. The preexisting bars rebranded themselves as supper clubs, continuing to serve drinks under a more refined cover. Others became soda fountains or cigar stores; still serving, but more discretely from under the counter. There were payoffs to police who were willing to turn a blind eye. Sales of grapes and yeast enjoyed an unprecedented boom, and never recovered once prohibition ended.
Modifications to bar policy came quick on the heels of the 21st amendment, which vetoed the 18th. Many bars resumed operations as equal opportunity clubs, and music ruled. Out came the accordions, to strike up the Butte polka. This from the Montana Standard of February 13, 1943:
Into the 1970s
Montana’s legal drinking age fell from 21 to 19 years during the summer of 1971. That November, an op-ed titled “Cheers” quoted police court judge John Salon, who said that “lowering the drinking age has gotten a lot of Butte kids off the streets and into the bars.” The implication was that the normally heavy court caseload of underage drinking eased by the culprits now being legal age, thus reducing his court load.
So Butte was able to sustain its many bars with new recruits. Enough so that according to a state quota law for retail liquor licenses, there should have been 876 watering holes in Montana. At that time there were 1,340. Butte led the way by being 73 taverns over quota, more than twice the overage of any other town in the state.
An argument for the neighborhood bar is that it fosters local community and fellowship. It is also true that one is more likely to injure oneself or others from behind a steering wheel than from atop a barstool.
Resources
Highly recommend Mining Cultures: Men, Women and Leisure in Butte 1914 – 1941; Mary Murphy; 1997;University of Illinois Press for an extensive overview of the changing roles of men and women in early 20th century Butte.
Growler culture is well-covered in a long-form article from the Butte Evening News of February, 20, 1910. The piece is named, Thirst Fountains Of Butte And Peculiarites Which Distinguish Them.
Ad for lunch special at the Arcade; Butte Mining Journal; December 3, 1887.
Closure of bars during prohibition from the Butte Miner of May 19, 1926
Short description and picture of Joe Laden dealing keno appears in Champagne In A Tin Cup; George Everett; 1995; Babcock Ventures
1996 police sting of Butte bars from the Montana Standard of Jun 15, 1996
Photo of M&M and Arcade Lounge from Arthur Rothstein for Farm Security Administration; 1939
Description of Butte red light district bars from the Montana Standard of June 26, 1994.
Quote from bar owner Frank Hock appeared in the Montana Standard of November 9. 2022)
Quote from Dale Williams; Montana Standard; August 4, 1974
Photo of Calusa Bar (undated) and Walker’s Bar (1933) from World Museum of Mining in Butte.
Quote from Judge John Salon from the Montana Standard of November 22, 1971
More resources
Story and quotes about the WCTU and free lunch from the Butte Miner of July 6, 1912.
Quote about the ubiquity of free lunch from Copper Camp; Montana Writer’s Project; 1934.
The liquor license quota system in Montana is discussed in the Montana Standard of July 28, 1973.
Staff writer Tracy Thornton gave an outstanding short overview of the history of Butte bars for the Montana Standard on June 2, 1994.
A longform review of the ethnic and class distinctions among the saloons of Butte came from “The Fountains Of Butte and Peculiarities Which Distinguish Them.” It is the source for my information on the tab system. This was an article in the Butte Evening News of February 20, 1910.
