821 West Granite

In 1890, the sound of hammers echoed throughout Butte’s West Side, a result of the community’s phenomenal growth as it converted from a silver town to a copper metropolis. Butte grew over two hundred percent during the 1880s, and this home was one of many built to accommodate the newcomers, who numbered middle-class professionals as well as miners.

Early residents included William and Christina Paxson, parents of well-known western painter Edgar S. Paxson, whose work includes six murals in the Montana state capitol building. William died at age eighty-three in 1908, and by 1910, the one-story, brick-veneered residence had become home to drugstore owner Charles Hoskins and his wife Mary Ann.

The couple lived here with their children and a live-in servant until Charles’s death in 1934. Sometime between 1900 and 1916, owners added a large rear addition and MT NATIONAL REGISTER SIGN TEXT 1990 TO APRIL 2019 a spacious front porch supported by Tuscan columns, a reflection of changing architectural taste.

Fashion dictated classical simplicity rather than Queen Anne style excess after the turn of the century.