'Going up?' Storied Carpenters Union Hall to hold fundraiser for elevator project
Firebrand anarchist Emma Goldman and actress Helen Mirren share at least one experience.
Both spent time at the historic Carpenters Union Hall in Uptown Butte.
Mirren's visit was in 2022 during filming for the TV series "1923" of raucous crowd scenes — set in the renovated second floor ballroom.
Goldman visited in 1910, when the hall on Granite Street was just a few years old. The anti-religious zealot came to Catholic-friendly Butte as an advocate for birth control, emancipation for women, rights for homosexuals and much more.
Mirren, co-star Harrison Ford and the production team for "1923" spent hours in this stately building that once teetered on demolition's edge.
For the past decade, volunteers have worked to renovate the building's upper floors. Their labor and grant writing have brought back the Renaissance Revival building, whose contemporary tenants include the independently quirky KBMF — a low-power, non-commercial community radio station.
Untold hours of often-tedious volunteer labor have restored impressive ballrooms on the labor temple's top two floors. And the Carpenters Union Hall's loyal contingent wants regional residents and visitors to have access to these floors aside from steps that would leave a marathoner winded.
Toward that end, the hall is adding an elevator.
Butte-based Jay Fortune Construction has signed a contract to build the structure on the building's southeast exterior that will house the lift. Architect Steve Hinick of Butte provided the design.
In 2014, when Clark Grant first climbed the stairs to the union hall's upper floors, there was no plumbing, no electricity and no heating. The walls bore the scars of water damage from an enfeebled roof. Light skulked through boarded-up windows.
Grant has been one of the volunteers and a dogged pursuer of grants. The cost of the elevator project is about $400,000 and that Carpenters Union Hall Inc. has about $332,000 on hand, largely from grants, he said.
That leaves a gap of about $68,000.
Enter the Brewfest scheduled for Oct. 5.
From 4 p.m. to 8 p.m., the Carpenters Union Hall will host a celebration of restoration completed-to-date paired with a fundraiser for the elevator project.
Grant harbors no illusions the event will yield $68,000.
"Yeah, no, if we raise $15,000, we'll be thrilled," he said. "Whatever we make, we'll be happy. But $15,000 is our goal."
The event is open to the public and will feature Montana breweries, live music and an opportunity to tour the building's recently renovated upper floors. If weather allows, music performances will occur outside.
The elevator will be a vital addition to Carpenters Union Hall, Grant said.
"We're not required to do it, but we spent so much damn time fixing up these upper ballrooms, we want people of all abilities to be able to enjoy them," he said.
Work on the building has included roof replacement, all new electrical, plumbing and heating, new windows, extensive plaster repair and installation of more than 2,000 square feet of new hardwood flooring.
Dozens of people have volunteered labor through the years to save and restore Carpenters Union Hall, Grant said. A few key people have been Rodney Norman, Jay Bressette, Kevin Cook, Daniel Hogan and Mike Boysza, he said.
"I first came in this building with Amanda Curtis when we were starting the radio station," Grant said. "We went around town, and she was showing me buildings she thought would work for the station. We looked at the library, we looked at the Phoenix building and then we came to this building.
"I thought, 'Oh, this is the one,' you know," he said. "And that was 10 years ago, 2014, and I was a younger man. I was very excited about fixing this building, and did not understand what it would require."
Curtis started organizing "a day of action," when volunteers showed up for tasks that ranged from mucking out pigeon guano to tearing out ceilings, Grant said.
Volunteer numbers decreased as the work became more specialized, demanding experience, credentials and finish-work skills.
Grant funding sources have included the Butte-Silver Bow Urban Revitalization Agency, the Montana Department of Commerce and the Superfund Advisory and Redevelopment Trust Authority, or SARTA. Among other things, SARTA supports projects that promote redevelopment of properties affected by past mining activities.
Meanwhile, in 2017, local historian Dick Gibson wrote about Emma Goldman's visit to Butte in 1910.
"Her second speech focused on 'The White Slave Trade,' by which she mostly referred to prostitution," Gibson wrote. "Butte had quite a reputation in that area, of course, but it was a nationwide issue."
Gibson wrote that Goldman came three more times to Butte, known as the Gibraltar of Unionism, visiting in 1912, 1913 and 1914. She died in 1940 in Canada.
A quote attributed to Goldman observes, "If I can't dance to it, it's not my revolution."
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