The Kelley family moved to Butte in 1883, and Kelley’s father, who became a close associate of Marcus Daly, went to work as superintendent of the Bell mine. When Con Kelley graduated from Butte High School in 1892, Daly gave him a job as a surveyor in the mines. After two years, he left for college at the University of Michigan, returning to Butte each summer to work in ACM’s engineering department. After graduating with a law degree in 1898, Kelley opened a law practice in Butte, and the following year, he was appointed Chief Deputy County Attorney. Shortly after William Scallon became president of ACM, he hired Kelley to work in the company’s legal department. He became chief counsel in 1908 and was appointed ACM vice president in 1911. Kelley was instrumental in helping Ryan to consolidate the several major mining properties in Butte under the ownership and operation of ACM, and he played a similar role in helping ACM to acquire properties elsewhere in the U.S. and the Americas. He served as an officer of several of those subsidiaries. He became president of ACM when Ryan died in 1933 and chairman of ACM board of directors in 1940, at which time ACM vice president James R. Hobbins took over as president. Kelley chaired ACM board during the initiation of the Greater Butte Project, which resulted in the sinking of a new mineshaft. It was named the Kelley shaft. Con Kelley retired from ACM in 1955, when the company changed its name to The Anaconda Company. He died two years later.

When Kelley returned to Butte from law school, he lived with his family for a few years on North Main. After he joined the legal department of ACM, he lived in the Lenox on West Granite in 1903 and then for four years in one of the rowhouses on West Broadway built by the Largey estate. His rapid rise in ACM was demonstrated by the new mansion he built on West Park, immediately east of the D.J. Hennessy mansion at the corner of Park and Excelsior. Built in 1906, the house was designed by W.A. O’Brien. Like Ryan, Kelley moved to New York City after Amalgamated was dissolved, and ACM ran its global enterprise from New York.

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A large circular portico with surrounding Ionic columns dominates the facade of this grand residence, constructed in 1906 for Cornelius “Con” Kelley and his wife Mary for the then princely sum of $20,000. Butte architect W.A. O'Brien's design for the Neoclassical Revival home also features a wraparound porch supported by Ionic columns and topped with a decorative balustrade. Other detailing includes semi-circular and angled bay windows and repeating cornice brackets at the soffits. Con Kelley became president of the Anaconda Copper Mining Company and relocated to New York City in 1918, but in 1906 he worked for the Company as an attorney. He fought some of the Company’s most famous legal battles, including defending it against Augustus Heinze’s attempt to claim its copper as his own at the turn of the century. J. Bruce Kremer and his wife Cornelia lived here until 1933. Kremer was an attorney and chairman of the Democratic National Committee and presided over the Democratic Convention in San Francisco in 1920. Dan Kelly, ACM president of western operations, and his wife, Helen, lived in the home until the 1950s.

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