Swiss-born Rocco Campana came to Butte in 1886 when it was still a mining camp with a precarious future. Rocco first opened a saloon then, confident of the town’s potential, invested his savings in property on this corner. By 1890, three brothers had joined him. Clemens, Celeste, and Constante Campana operated a grocery, hay, and grain business while Rocco handled wholesale liquors and cigars. The entire family lived on the premises. In 1894, the Campanas hired Butte architect H. M. Patterson to combine the corner storefront with a new two-story building next door. The family residence then sprawled over both second floors above the grocery and bar. A feed store and stable were on the alley. In 1898, Rocco died leaving his wife Pellegrina and nine children, the youngest twelve days old. Pellegrina raised her children here, running the bar and grocery until her death in 1925. The centered name and date may not be the only reminder of this family prominence in Butte’s commercial history. Some recently claim to have seen the ghost of Pellegrina presiding behind the bar.

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Sam Martin and William F. Mosby were the first of many proprietors of the legendary saloon, eatery, and gambling house that operated here from 1890 until 2021. Although Martin and Mosby’s tenure was short, Butte’s love of nicknames endured and their initials remained on the M & M. For more than a century the M & M never rested, serving customers around the clock. The doors were always unlocked; each subsequent owner ceremoniously and publicly disposed of the keys. The M & M catered to miners coming off their shifts while the kitchen served bountiful breakfasts at any hour of the day or night. When Prohibition hit, the M & M followed other Butte bars, officially becoming a cigar store. Cigars sold in the front discreetly cloaked the speakeasy in the back room where the liquor continued to flow. The iconic building with its 1940s Art Deco ground-floor façade, spectacular neon sign, and the vintage 1890s upper level burned to the ground in 2021. The business moved next door and the neon sign, which was saved from the fire, will be reinstalled at the new location.

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