Industry in the Middle

Industry in the Middle. . , Railway in the Neighborhood , With the Butte mines voracious appetite for laborers, the demand for housing always exceeded the supply. New arrivals were often forced to live in shacks, or pay exorbitant rents for barely habitable rooms. Competition for housing drove rental rates beyond the means of the working class. , Typical of Butte, city additions were the surface rights of patented mining claims. The slope of the land in some areas resulted in houses on the north side of the street being high above the street level, frequently with five to ten foot retaining walls. Conversely, on the south sides of the streets, houses are often below the street level. , Butte did not develop residential neighborhoods based on socioeconomic status. The architectural styles primarily appeal to workers, but like all neighborhoods in the city, there is an eclectic mixing of architectural styles within any given area. Perhaps the most striking example of this mix in a neighborhood can be found in the 1100 block of Caledonia. On the north side of the street is the massive architect-designed, shingle-style residence of James R. Thompson, of Thompson Investment Company. The south side of the block is lined by several of the Thompson Investment Company's one-story, wood-frame worker's houses, all constructed in 1897. The building permit for one of these houses lists construction cost of only $500. , “I grew up in Cork Town, thanks be to God. The names of the families in this neighborhood slip off the tongue sounding like a roll call of immigrants on naturalization Day.” , , Kevin Shannon, switchman B.A. and P. Ry., retired. , “Now we’re coming into the area of the Desperation and if you look up above in those trees, you’ll see the exhaust shaft of the Desperation mine. At two o’clock in the morning down here you’d get that powder smell that would be coming from the shaft.” , , Kevin Shannon, switchman B.A. and P. Ry., retired. , “That warm air, it was like vapor; yeah, and you’d see it all over the hill, these ventilation shafts , the vapor coming out of them. You could tell the volume of air by the vapor that was coming out of the shaft you knew it was cold.” , , Leno Bazzanella, engineer B.A. and P. Ry., retired.