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 (see note #1.)
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 (see note #2.)
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.
Faced with the demand for drive-up banking, and unable to provide it from that corner, Metals Bank in 1968 acquired the corner across Main, where the Rialto Theater stood. It knocked down the venerable old movie house and moved there to a smaller bank with 4 lanes for banking by car.
This corner of Park and Main had seen better times. Within two years, a large insurance company and eighteen of the thirty-eight offices in the Metals building moved on. In September of 1970, Silver Bow County took possession of the structure. In March of the following year, it offered the building at auction, with bids starting at $60,000. The remaining tenants of the building purchased it within four days of listing.
The Metals Bank building was converted to condominiums, and it remains that way today, a long way from its roots in the company of copper kings. It was saved by regular individuals with a great bargain and the will to restore an old beauty.
So much for prologue. A couple of dozen feet straight down from this one time financial heart of the city sat a humble hole-in-the-wall diner. The tiny Chili King was tucked into the sloping foundation of the Metals Bank building.
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 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 (see note #2), 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 directly across Park street, to a single story structure that would 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:
Notes:
Note 1: The first significant development of the southwest corner of Park and Main was in 1884. The team of Hamilton and Pfouts sold their Montana Chief mine and bought the corner lots to develop an office building. In excavating for the basement, they hit a silver bearing quartz deposit. The two claimed the find would pay for the $30,000 construction cost. The two-story Hamilton and Pfouts Block opened in October, 1884. It hosted the Haight and Fairfield jewelry store and State Savings Bank for two decades. The Butte Miner of January 10, 1910 called it “the finest building in the city” at that time.
A bar/lunchroom/variety show called Arion Hall occupied the basement level. It provided a bit of competition to the Theater Comique, a popular vaudeville house two doors south. In 1885 at Arion Hall, one could get lunch specialties including pickled tripe, pickled tongue, salami wurst, limburger cheese, sardines and Russian caviar for 12 1/2 cents each. Only the pickled pig’s feet and Holland herring went for as much as two bits. Oysters, the fad of that era, and served in every style, arrived daily from New York.
Arion Hall was the creation of Frederic Ritchie. In 1888, he and his partner John Gordon created the first version of Columbia Gardens. It was in the Horse Canyon section of East Butte, and catered to company picnics, reunions, and other adult events. Only the lack of trolley service prevented it from being successful. When W.A. Clark bought the operation in 1899, he relocated it further east, at the foot of the mountains, designing it to cater to families.
Arion Hall fell victim, like many others, to the depressed economy resulting from the Panic of 1893. It closed for good in November of that year.
Note 2: Patrick Largey had a hand in much of early Butte’s development. He owned the Speculator mine and many other properties, established Butte’s first electric utility, telegraph lines, the Intermountain newspaper, and the hardware company. He was also president of the State Savings (later Metals) Bank. If there was a fourth ‘copper king,’ it was Largey.
The circumstances surrounding the spectacular 1895 explosion of the Kenyon-Connell hardware outfit is well-considered in a PBS documentary; Hidden Fire: The Great Butte Explosion. https://www.pbs.org/video/montanapbs-presents-hidden-fire-the-great-butte-explosion/?fbclid=IwAR1AryeiswWIlFWixRna3ZQ0KbQt7FxClpKoJcr81mung_UNdhWeO8YFSwI
Further thoughts
There was a lot of struggle in the attempt to bring uptown Butte into line with expectations of a great city to match its great wealth. Fact was that in 1884, the “business district” was still very much an unrefined cluster of saloons, gambling halls, whorehouses and noodle parlors.
The Butte Miner that year pointed out that in the single block of Main Street, from Park to Broadway, there were eleven saloons. The intersection of Park and Main had the unregulated and poorly understood Chinatown district immediately to its south, and the red light district adjacent to the east.
When the Butte Daily Post discussed Patrick Largey purchasing the Hamilton and Pfouts property in 1891, it hoped, “the placing of a bank building there would have a tendency to eventually rid the neighborhood of saloons, pawnshops and gambling houses.” It was a long road to coexistence in Butte.
The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 severely limited immigration and citizenship until 1the 1940s. It encouraged anti-Chinese sentiment in general, and pinched off the development of Butte’s Chinatown.
Prohibition and the temperance movement stemmed a lot of public drinking from 1919 – 1933, but also encouraged moonshining, bootlegging, and surreptitious drinking. It didn’t so much fix problem drinking as move it around. This was probably a net benefit to Park and Main, as the obvious saloons toned down, went out of business or sought sites with lower profiles.
Prostitution moved around as well, as the city attempted to improve appearances. From its frontage on Galena Street, the ‘restricted zone’ moved to the alleys behind Galena, then further south to Mercury Street. Vestiges of the old trade persisted until 1982.
Eventually, a respectable and architecturally proud uptown district materialized. Park and Main was in full bloom around 1917; its four corners boasting large conventional buildings – the Owsley Block, Rialto Theater, Metals Bank, and Lizzie Block.
Note #2: It’s mentioned that Owl Cab relocated its taxi stand to the front of Spillums on North Main. Here are a couple of dime store cowboys leaning on a cab there in the early 1960s.
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.
Hamilton and Pfouts strike silver from Butte Weekly Miner; June 14 1884
Arion Hall folds; from Butte Miner of November 8, 1893
An excellent series of views of the Columbia Gardens is on a site devoted to the history of Portland, Oregon (really.) http://www.pdxhistory.com/html/columbia_gardens.html
Butte Daily Post discussing purchase of Hamilton and Pfouts building; August 4,1891
