Upscale neighborhoods often placed “restrictive covenants” to assure new buildings did not compromise the ambience. When developer James King sold lots in this new suburb, covenants he set required a twenty-five-foot setback for new homes, which had to cost at least $3,000 to build. This elegant residence certainly met those requirements. The home boasts characteristic Colonial Revival details: symmetry, a side-gabled roof, decorative shutters, dentils at the eaves, and accentuated front entrance. The interior features original chandeliers, hardwood floors, and brocade wallpaper. Likely built as an investment by Herbert Tunnell, the house was first purchased by store manager Edward Olson and wife Agnes in 1925. Mining engineer William Rossberg and his wife Katherine lived here from 1928 to 1930. William and Mabel Guthrie purchased the home in 1931, residing here until their deaths hers in 1970, his in 1972. A Stanford University–educated electrical engineer, William helped design the power plant that supplied the Anaconda Company with electricity. Mabel attended the University of Montana and in 1918 gained renown as the first woman to staff a Missoula-area fire lookout station.

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Paired Ionic columns support a classical one-story porch while the parapet atop the curved two-story bay window evokes the image of a medieval castle. Kitty Paxson and her husband, pharmacist Robert Paxson, lived in the elegant brick residence in 1900. By 1920, Thomas and Anna Chope lived here with their five children. An Irish immigrant, Thomas began his career in Butte as an underground miner and served as a union officer before becoming foreman at the High Ore Mine. There he compiled one of the Company’s best safety records. The Chopes lived across the street in 1917, when the Granite Mountain-Speculator fire killed 168 men in the nation’s deadliest hard-rock mining disaster. To appease the miners after the fire, the Company named Chope to the newly created position of labor commissioner. According to family legend, Chope offered his children a new car or this home after he received word of the promotion. They chose the house, which remained in the Chope family until 1995. Thomas barely had time to enjoy his new home; he died in 1921, at age fifty, after an emergency appendectomy.

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Elaborate and diverse architecture characterizes the homes along this stretch of Broadway today, but during the 1880s rather modest dwellings lined the street. This was one of Butte’s first settled neighborhoods and historic maps indicate that the core of this home predates 1884. By the mid-1890s, Dr. Donald Campbell, personal physician to copper king F. A. Heinze, was in residence. Until about 1905 Dr. Campbell had his medical offices at the home; he later became president of Murray Hospital. Campbell enlarged the original T-shaped, one-story house to two stories in 1896, expanding it at the back and to the east. By 1916 the home had again been dramatically remodeled to its present appearance. A graceful arched entrance, unusual decorative cast ironwork, and mission style parapet reflect the Spanish Revival style. Arched, circular, and oval windows and friezes with garlands, dentils, and bull’s eyes further enhance the façade. Its neighbors complement the home’s distinctive architecture. Together the three residences were known as the Mediterranean Block.

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