134 West Broadway

A private ground-floor residence with rooms for rent upstairs was the original function of this 1880s two-story building. Its history provides a fascinating glimpse of life in early-day Butte. Maps of 1888 and 1890 show that a frame open-air porch spanned the building’s length at the rear. An unusual walkway connected the porch to a small two-story building, undoubtedly the common privy.

The dwelling was home to English miner Joseph Brook, whose wife Clara ran the rooming house at the turn of the twentieth century. By 1910, seven lodgers rented furnished rooms from Mrs. Josie Meyer, who lived here with her husband, two small children, and her mother. Two decades later, the first-floor residence had been divided into two storefronts housing a millinery shop and a corner grocery.

Furnished rooms were still available upstairs at least through the 1930s. Although the original brick veneer was replaced circa 1915-1920, the upstairs central entry remains from the 1880s rooming house.