Anaconda Payroll Office

From ENHLDWiki

The historic Chambers Building (more recently known as the Anaconda Company Payroll Building) played a prominent role in Butte history. The Montana Historical and Architectural Inventory, from the Butte-Silver Bow Archives, states that "this building is a primary element of the central business and landmark districts because of its association with Marcus Daly and John D. Ryan." Marcus Daly was one of Butte's Copper Kings, founder of the company that became the Anaconda, and John D. Ryan was the third president of the Anaconda Company. These two men also established one of Butte's early banking institutions, the Daly Bank and Trust Co., in this building.

Construction of the building began before 1884. The physical integrity of this masonry structure remains intact and is consistent with the architecture of Butte's heyday. The two-story rectangular building on North Main Street at Quartz has a flat roof and ashlar-coursed dressed granite foundation. The masonry is covered with brick veneer in American bond, with a stuccoed front façade. The building has a central entry with two wooden doors and a clear overhead transom, and two side entries. The first floor has fixed-plate windows framed in brick arches with scalloped wrought iron rails along the bottom of each window. The windows have molded stone sills. A wooden cornice and molding divides the two floors, and the second floor has double-hung wooden window frames with wooden sills. There is a corbeled dentil frieze along the roof edge.

In 1897 the primary occupant was the Daly, Donohue, and Moyer Bank, which by 1900 had become the Daly Bank and Trust. The Anaconda Copper Mining Company also became a tenant in the building by 1908, housing its General Mines Office and Purchasing Office on the second floor. In subsequent years the bank moved further down Main Street, and the Anaconda Co. housed its payroll office in the former bank, on the first floor of the building. The building housed the payroll office for over 60 years until the closing of the Anaconda Company in the early 1980s. During the 1920s, the armored payroll car would pick up payments — in cash, usually gold or silver — to transport to the mines for distribution to the workers. This armored car is now on display at the World Museum of Mining.

References

Butte CPR Historic Buildings descriptions [1]. Original text by Joe Lynch.