Distinctly Montana Magazine

D I S T I N C T LY M O N TA N A M A G A Z I N E • S P R I N G 2 0 2 3 52 F or the uninitiated passerby throwing a cursory glance out the car window as they zip by on I-90, Butte looks to have its fair share of fixer-uppers. Though not an inaccurate per- ception, it takes more than a windshield survey of the city's sky- line to understand the entire story. Butte's appearance of faded decadence today stems from Butte's fantastically good fortunes of yesteryear as the copper mining capital of the United States. Ornate brick mansions with turrets and balconies sport win- dows covered by plywood. The dozen-plus headframes that dominate the city's skyline once roared with activity as miners worked around the clock to pull copper from the belly of the "richest hill in America." Today, these same steel behemoths stand silent over Butte's oldest neighborhoods. Though Butte's population peak is a source of ongoing debate—depend- ing on whom you ask, the number is anywhere from 40,000 to 100,000–census numbers show a steady decline in the popu- lation from the 1920s through the 1990s, when Butte's fortunes started to shift again thanks to the influx of federal funds from its Superfund designation in 1983. WHO WAS MARY MACLANE? Near the corner of North Excelsior Avenue and Caledonia Street sit a pair of unassuming brick duplexes with the tell- tale bay windows of the Italianate style, an architectural style popular in America in the mid- to late-nineteenth century. The southmost duplex at 417-419 North Excelsior Avenue is visibly the worse for wear, with a couple boarded-over windows and a crumbling front porch. One of the two front doors on the ground floor has been bricked over. Though the building doesn't look impressive or even particu- larly inviting, it holds an important place in Butte's rich history. The apartment with the bricked-over door was once the home of writer and Bohemian provocateur Mary MacLane, who lived here when she wrote her first memoir at the age of nineteen. The Story of Mary MacLane (toned down from MacLane's own more bra- zen title, I Await the Devil's Com- ing) sold 100,000 copies in its first month, and MacLane made more than enough money to realize her dream of leaving provincial Butte behind (at least temporarily). She describes the city as "so ugly indeed that it is near the perfection of ugliness." MacLane also decries the middle-class af- fectations that she sees in the people around her: "From wax flowers off a wedding cake, under glass; from thin-soled shoes; from tapeworms; from photographs perched up all over my house; kind Devil, deliver me." The teenage writer boasted a voice that was candid, humorous, and often arrogant. She wrote openly about her bisexuality and her misgivings about the passive, do- mestic role she was expected to assume as a woman. While news- papers outside Montana sang her praises, the public library in Butte banned MacLane's book from the shelves; the Helena In- dependent chortled that it was a good move on Butte's part, lest "the self-respecting books in the library [jump] out the window." MacLane honed her chops as a journalist on the East Coast, where she moved handily in literary circles and lived with Caro- line Branson, the former partner of novelist Maria Louise Poole. MacLane came back to Butte in 1909, where she wrote I, Mary MacLane (1917). Though the cutting humor is still there, a deep appreciation for Butte's unique beauty shines through in her second memoir. She hatched plans to leave Butte a second time to write, direct, and star in a 1918 silent film, Men Who Have Made Love to Me. MacLane passed away in 1929, rumored to be surrounded in her bed by news clippings from the glory days of her youth. But this is only a rumor. PULLING BACK FROM THE PRECIPICE As for MacLane's home on North Excelsior back in Butte, it went on without her. In the 1960s, a family removed the load-bearing wall on the second floor to unite the two duplex- es into a single living unit. By the 1990s, a motorcycle gang had taken up residence and wreaked havoc on the building's interior and exterior. In 1996, Professor Bill Macgregor began restoration work on the property. Macgregor taught at the time in Montana Tech's Department of Professional and Technical Communica- tion. He worked closely with students in the historic preservation program as they learned how to write condition assessments of properties, bid for contracts, and build out project budgets. As part of their service learning curriculum, students in the Historic Preservation Technologies Program created a treat- ment plan for the MacLane home, addressing some of the build- ing's most urgent needs at the time. They helped tear out and replace plaster inside, and rebuilt the missing wall on the second floor. The removal of this wall had put struc- tural strain on the building. Without the support of the load-bearing wall, the 30-foot ceiling joists on the sec- ond-floor ceiling buckled towards the center of the building, putting deflection force on the windows, deforming the window frames and breaking the glass. This deflection force also caused the brick veneer to buckle. The structural damage from this period of the building's history remains visible on the ex- terior, and is one aspect Macgre- gor hopes to address in the next round of restoration. RESTORING MARY MACLANE'S HOME IN BUTTE, AMERICA by LINDSAY TRAN "THE NEAR PERFECTION OF RICHARD GIBSON

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