Kings of the hill
The development of copper and zinc mining in Butte runs parallel with the stories of several men known as the ‘copper kings’. They were Western versions of gilded age business monarchs like Rockefeller, Carnegie, Gould and Ford. The goal for each of these business titans was the monopolistic dominance of some fast growing segment of the American economy. With an insatiable need for copper to interconnect grids for both electricity and telecommunications, the mountain of copper that formed Butte powered several vast personal fortunes.
There were three copper kings; William A. Clark, Marcus Daly, and F. Augustus Heinze. An unofficial fourth was banker and real estate developer Patrick Largey. The paths of all four men crossed at one time or another at the very center of Butte’s uptown district – the corner of Park and Main Streets. The earliest platted portion of the city, it formed the center of Butte’s business and society from the late 1870s on.
In the early 1890s, Patrick Largey’s State Savings Bank held that corner. In 1895, Largey was shot and killed in his office there, by a man who had lost a leg in a lethal and destructive warehouse explosion at Kenyon Connell, a hardware firm Largey co-owned.
By 1906,Heinze and E.P. Chapin owned the State Savings Bank. Marcus Daly’s widow helped finance construction of the eight story building that currently occupies the site. It was drawn up by Cass Gilbert, who went on to design both New York City’s Woolworth Building and the U.S. Supreme Court.
The State Savings Bank became the Metals Bank and Trust in 1920. When Metals acquired the assets of W.A. Clark’s bank in 1928, it became the best capitalized bank between Seattle and Minneapolis. The heavy use of copper on the building’s exterior pays tribute to the source of the bank’s wealth.
With this as prologue, it was just a couple of dozen feet straight down from this financial heart of the city to a humble hole-in-the-wall diner tucked into its foundation.
The Chili King of my youth
As a kid in the 1960s, I often caught the Englewood bus from my home on the flats to uptown Butte. The city library there contained a world of possibility and offered a brief escape from the everyday. If I had the fare, I waited for a homebound bus at the corner of Park and Main Streets. The Metals Bank building stood there, built over a row of descending smaller storefronts along Main. The hillside was steep enough that the buildings beneath the bank appeared wedge shaped from the outside. The first building, at the tip of the wedge was the office for Owl Cab. The second was the Chili King.
Chili King’s windows were opaque from decades of airborne grease, blown out toward the street via a continuously running exhaust fan. A pungent aroma surrounded folks waiting at the corner. It was unpleasant to breathe it, but that’s where the bus stopped. I wasn’t a particularly refined kid, but vowed to myself that I’d never end up so down and out as to eat in there.
Much later I learned that it wasn’t so bad after all. In fact, if I’d have driven an Owl cab at some point, it might have been a joy to tuck into a beefy beany bowl of chili between fares.
The corner of Park and Main Streets was the primary intersection in uptown Butte. It was the heart of the commercial district, in the earliest settled part of the city. There used to be a healthy amount of foot traffic.
Chili scenes of old San Antonio
Chili con carne. I once came across an apocryphal story about how jailhouses on the Texas-Mexico border were ill-provisioned. Forced to improvise, the government fed inmates spoiled beef that was heavily spiced to disguise its poor quality. Since beans were cheap and could be dried and stored in giant bags, they were thrown in to provide some starch. Although this fits my own cowpoke ideas of life on the frontier, I can find no validation for the tale.
It’s now generally accepted that Tex-Mex chili originated in San Antonio back in the 1860s. ‘Chili queens’ boiled up pots of spicy stew, and sold it to passers-by in the town’s plazas. The peppers used most likely came from the Canary Islands. In 1731 Spain sent sixteen families from there to San Antonio, to plant a flag in the colonial ground and frustrate French ambitions in Texas. These immigrants brought a spicy sauce called red mojo, used to season meat. It was possibly the birth of chili (and of the word ‘mojo,’ for all its spicy connotations.) The first printed reference to ‘chili con carne’ appeared in the 1882 Gould’s directory of San Antonio.
However it began, it migrated quickly as a cheap, easy to prepare and fairly nutritious dish. The Butte Bystander of October 9, 1897 featured a profile of chili queens in San Antonio, hawking what the writer called “the fiercely burning chili con carne (which) agonizes the tourist.”
Chili moves north
Local chili appeared in the mining city of Butte, Montana as early as 1899. It was a canned product and, like related tamales, available from the Montana Cash Grocery.
Canned tamales have been available from Truzzolino for decades. The firm began in 1896, with an immigrant family from Palermo, Italy preparing a Tex Mex staple. They sold tamales from a cart uptown, and it proved profitable. Vincent Truzzolino ran his original parlor on West Park Street from 1919 through 1932. This ad from is from that first year in Butte.
Note that the dish was novel enough to have caused confusion between the chili pepper and the country of Chile. And there were other vendors, clustered in the center of town, around Park and Main Streets. Lee Chili Parlor from 1910:
And the Pony Chili Parlor, as in this ad from the Butte High School yearbook of 1918:
By 1927 Chili King was ensconced in its location under the Metals Bank. It already referred to itself, along with its hobo (or mulligan) stew as “famous.”
This is not fancy fare; it was intended for people of limited means, willing to perch on a stool for ten minutes while dunking a donut (aka ‘sinker’) in their coffee. Note that Chili King also prepared miners’ lunch buckets for the next shift.
Mid-century in Butte
The nation headed toward a financial crash that year; one which would fester for the next decade, affecting almost all aspects of American society. Hobos, the kings of the road, became ubiquitous. They even adopted a charter and attempted to form a nationwide union. In May of 1929, The Montana Free Press published a whimsical recipe for hobo stew.
From 1933 through 1968 the Chili King was owned and operated by Joe and Frances Merrick, natives of Yugoslavia. That’s a long way from San Antonio, but speaks to the cultural mulligan stew that formed Butte. Italians and tamales, Yugoslavs and chili; it all worked out.
World War II provided an economic boon for the mining city. Labor was in high demand as manpower siphoned off into the military. Metals were critical to the production of armaments and communications wire. Butte finally recovered from the Great Depression and life was relatively good again.
Butte created fortunes for those who could exploit its riches, but the average resident lived simply. The local cuisine featured inexpensive meals like spaghetti and ravioli, Cornish pasties, tamales and chili, chop suey and pork chop sandwiches. These refined over time and have continued to thrive there. It also helped that with Butte’s strict union adherence, fast food restaurants were non-existent well into the 1970s.
Two quick tales from the Chili King
One scene repeated itself every so often on the steep streets of uptown Butte. In 1947, a driverless car parked outside the Chili King “broke loose” from its parking place and coasted two blocks down South Main Street. It took out a couple of parking meters and a display window of the office building that stopped it. .
An old customer entered the Chili King in May, 1954. He wanted to pay a bill for meals he enjoyed “on the cuff.” That is to say, by way of running a tab. Merrick had no record of the man’s bills there, but the former customer said he did, and returned the next day with bills totaling $25.95. He then added $4.05 for the trouble of carrying him over time. It turned out that the bills were from twelve years earlier. This is an illustration of good human nature on the part of both men, and there are many examples of this in Butte stories. While under the ownership of Carl Rowan, Gamer’s cafe on Park Street had no one tending the cash register. Diners cashed themselves out and made their own change.
End of the Chili King
When Jack White took over in 1972, the Chili King went from round the clock service to a still considerable 7am to midnight operation. He installed a small gallery of works by local artists, and specifically welcomed “employees of our number one taxpayer and employer.” That would be the Anaconda Company, which eventually consolidated all the mining operations of Butte.
Jack worked hard to make a decent restaurant out of an inarguable greasy spoon. The exhaust fan disappeared and new large windows were installed. He expanded offerings to include lasagna and spaghetti dinners, tacos, and steaks. All meals included salad, soup, garlic bread, a vegetable and dessert. Jack went as far as to make his sauces and dressings in house.
Unfortunately, the tide of time worked against all the small businesses around Park and Main. It’s ironic that the country of Chile had both more copper than Butte and low labor costs. Chile nationalized the Anaconda Mining Company holdings in 1971, and dumped copper on the world market. As the price for copper dropped precipitously in the early 1970s, the mines shut down and uptown stagnated. This situation became dire enough for a spate of insurance inspired arson to consume entire blocks in the area of Park and Main Streets. With a sharply diminished clientele, the Chili King finally closed after an impressive fifty year run. Thus, it’s just possible that Chile did in the Chili King.
Owl Cab eventually moved farther up Main Street, and the three businesses beneath the bank building merged into the (quite good) Park And Main Cafe, open for breakfast and lunch. The Metals Bank moved across the street, to a single story structure to better accommodate motor banking. The eight story symbol of wealth and strength went condo, with a sports bar and grill on the first floor. The huge safe became available for private events.
Epilogue
Metal mining is dependent upon global demand and production. The ebb and flow of economics creates a maddening lack of predictability in a town reliant on mining for its survival. A restaurant is somewhat steadier, as people have to eat. Getting it right as to what folks want and can reliably afford is the tricky part. The coming and going of Butte’s restaurants mirror both the dining trends and financial health of the town.
Chili King is long gone, but you can still get a Truzzolino tamale from the frozen foods case in local markets:
Resources
Background on the Metals Bank building from The Vertigris Project – by Richard Gibson and Butte Silver Bow Archives. https://www.verdigrisproject.org/butte-americas-story-blog/butte-americas-story-episode-260-metals-bank-building
Cass Gilbert Society – https://cassgilbertsociety.org/works/butte-mt-bank/
The photo of the Metals Bank building is by Tom Ferris for the Montana Historical Society; 2021.
Background on Truzzolino Tamale Shop from NBC at https://nbcmontana.com/news/montana-moment/truzzolino-tamales-a-family-dynasty-for-125-years
A fascinating history, much more than you probably would ever need or even want to know about the history of chili con carne is available in Texas Monthly, here: https://www.texasmonthly.com/food/bloody-san-antonio-origins-chili-con-carne/
Much more about miners lunch buckets at my related essay about the Spokane cafe, three doors down from Chili King, at https://lafayettesquarearchives.com/?p=3969
The story of the truant diner settling up at Chili King came from the Montana Standard of May 6, 1954.
