During nearly eighty years of underground mining, Butte, Montana operated independent of sunlight. The need for metal outstripped the town’s desire for a normal cadence. Three shifts per day kept the city 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 Noodle Parlor for dinner at 2 a.m. The M&M bar and Green’s, both on Main near Park, famously had no locks on their front doors, as they fed the hungry and nursed the thirsty at all hours.
Bar boom to bust
Butte had saloons aplenty. In terms of bars per capita, its only competitor was Anaconda, twenty-five miles west and equally provident to its blue-collar smelter men.
The Mining City once quenched its thirst through the efforts of four breweries. Of the Tivoli, Centennial, Olympia, and Butte breweries, only the lattermost survived the Prohibition era (see note #1). Butte drank in bulk, and kids were sometimes 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.”
Twenty years after its incorporation in 1867, Butte claimed over 100 saloons. Byron E. Cooney of the Montana American counted 247 bars at the moment Prohibition began. Adding unlicensed venues, there were probably more than 300 taverns in the area. By the mid 1960s, Butte had settled considerably, and the number dwindled to fewer than 100. Closure of the underground mines and exodus of miners left the city with around eighty 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 quandary as to how it might continue supporting so many watering holes. The Montana Standard reported on March 23, 1994 that a police sting caught fifty bars in the act of serving underage customers. The sheriff was “extremely disappointed,” as only 26 of the 76 bars checked were in compliance with the “under 21” law. This operation lasted for only a 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. Six years later, a federal judge simultaneously shut down 55 Butte drinking establishments, including roadhouses, soft drink parlors, groceries and even private residences. The law had, up to this point, turned a blind eye toward miners’ widows for whom alcohol sales provided their sole means of support.
Outlawing liquor simply made drinking more clandestine, and stimulated production from illegal stills. Butte Italians welcomed shipments of grapes by the actual boxcar load. Roadhouses and speakeasies thrived. These alternate gathering places proved welcoming to customers of both sexes, whereas bars before prohibition were nearly an exclusive men’s domain. Breaking the law in this way developed a kind of thrilling cachet. Butte bars often recast themselves as soda fountains, keeping their more potent products out of sight but 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, Klapan’s Corner, Met Tavern, Five Mile Bar, Fountain, Mug Saloon, Star Saloon, Alley Cat, Pay Day, Frozen Inn, The Beer Can, Phileen’s, the Sump, ElMar Lounge, Collar and Elbow, Elite Saloon, Alibi Inn, 101 Bar, the Q.T., Tip Top Tavern, Bismarck, Classic Bar, Wigwam, Vegas Club, U&I, Shillelagh Tavern, Big Butte Tavern, House of Fong, Tivoli Saloon, Helsinki, Bucket of Blood, Cesspool, Atlantic, California, Midget, Thistle, Shanty, DeLuxe, Half-way House, Board of Trade, Silver Tip, Dry Gulch Saloon, New Deal, Speedway, South Side Athletic Club, Mom’s Cellar
Loading Zone, Club Inn, Cabin, Peppermint Lounge, Combination, 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, Pissers Palace, Pine Tree, Big 4, C.O.D., Ocean Bar, Irish Times, Clifford’s, Main Street Lounge, Shooters Pub, Rumpus Room, Swiss Home, Cheery Lounge, Cave Bar, Palm Garden,
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:
“At Burke’s and the ABC dancing lasts until morning. The girls are very homely and badly painted. 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. (See note #2)
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 off part of his bender while his friends continued their revelry. 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 in the 1860s and 70s, the saloon served as city hall, casino, fraternal lodge, dance floor, theater, bank, post office, employment agency and cafe to boot.
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 adoption of a Sunday smorgasbord by congregations.
Indeed, the free lunch had a checkered history with curious offerings and occasional mishaps.
The Depression era Montana Writers Project wrote in Copper Camp that a complimentary meal was standard saloon practice at that time. “A help yourself arrangement and everything was free. The only requisite was that the diner purchase a glass of beer.”
If not completely gratis, some of the drink/food offerings were compelling. The Arcade bar 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 free food. The ladies claimed their men went to have lunch at the bar, and began drinking while there. The day then tended to slip away.
A clever barkeeper countered that,
“A man on the down and out, hungry and desperate, will go into a saloon, eat a free lunch and satisfy his hunger. 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 of that name, an 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 appears in the Butte Evening News of July 21, 1909. It is described as “a drink of whiskey followed by a full glass of beer, sold only to miners coming off shift.” It was prevalent within 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 dirty 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.
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 12.5 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 first 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 operations existed for separating men from money in this wide open town. The working definition of ‘wide open town’ 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 (popular with ladies as 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.
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.
Dale Williams, director of the World Museum of Mining in 1974, pointed out 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. A long-time customer later complained, “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’ served two purposes: the whiskey cut the rock dust from an Irish miner’s lungs, and the beer slaked 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 less publicly at home, with the children often running to the pub for a growler to go.
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 for police and politicians 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 judge of the police court 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 was eased by the culprits becoming 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. In fact, at that time there were 1,340. Butte led the way, 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.
Notes
Note #1: Centennial Brewing Company opened in 1876. It closed for Prohibition and never reopened. It was on what is now Centennial Avenue. Centennial founder Leopold Schmidt later (1896) started the Olympia Brewing Company in Tumwater, Washington. The Tivoli Brewery was near Centennial and started up around 1900, as did Silver Bow Brewing. Butte Brewing Company was founded in 1885. It operated through 1965 and enjoyed a loyal following. Located on North Wyoming, where the Capri Motel stands. The fifth local brewery was the Olympia, about where the Met Tavern sits today.
Note #2: Alan Goddard for the Montana Standard claimed that the Atlantic kept twelve bartenders busy on a usual Saturday night, pouring out an average of 12,000 glasses of beer. (September 3, 1978)
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
Map of bars to groceries from http://www.floatingsheep.org/2010/02/beer-belly-of-america.html
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.
Reference to National Boilermaker Day here: https://www.nationaldayarchives.com/day/national-boilermaker-day/. Any day can be a celebration of something, as proven by the National Day Archives.
For a more specific look at Butte bars and restaurants of the past, another essay in this series takes a deeper dive. https://lafayettesquarearchives.com/dining-and-drinking-on-north-main/