{"id":1968,"featured":1,"modified":"2026-04-17 19:58:04","latitude":46.01344110000000142690623761154711246490478515625,"longitude":-112.5355068000000073880073614418506622314453125,"title":"Rookwood Hotel","subtitle":"Butte National Historic Landmark District","fullsize":"https://storyofbutte.org/files/fullsize/4e42396997bcff49dfc5a4e08e8e8456.jpg","address":"24-26 North Main Street, Butte, Montana","all_locations":[],"zoom":16,"creator":["Montana National Register Sign Program"],"description":"James Pratt, proprietor of the Red Boot and Shoe Company, spent $30,000 on the construction of this hotel/rooming house in 1912. The shoe company occupied the ground floor space through the 1930s. Large display windows and a Tudor-arched entry, designed to entice customers and guests, enhance the ground floor. Green tile embellishes the façade and caps the unique copper-clad cornice. Inside, a wrought iron staircase with marble treads leads down to the hotel lobby. Marble wainscoting and a marble floor recall its once-elegant hospitality. The lodging house above, renamed the La Salle Hotel in 1938, had more than forty-five rooms. During Prohibition in the late 1910s and 1920s, the hotel’s thirty working-class lodgers perhaps enjoyed the hidden bar tucked beneath the sidewalk. Discovered during cleanup of the building, the clandestine establishment had all the trappings of a period speakeasy including a secret entry and two-way mirror. The room continues the architectural motif with decorative Tudor arches spanning the ceiling. Elaborate support columns sporting carved griffins, terrazzo flooring, dark hardwood wainscoting, and marble trim expose a piece of Butte’s once-spirited underground.","sponsor":null,"accessinfo":"Private","lede":"","website":"","related_resources":["<a href=\"https://npgallery.nps.gov/GetAsset/b2694698-4c33-4e3d-b1f9-d8b8740bf6dc/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Read about the Butte National Historic Landmark District</a>","<a href=\"https://npgallery.nps.gov/GetAsset/9ecb5fd7-e392-42a7-a16e-94df0f020422\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">See photos of the Butte National Historic Landmark District</a>"],"factoids":[],"files":{"https://storyofbutte.org/files/fullsize/4e42396997bcff49dfc5a4e08e8e8456.jpg":{"id":2191,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"Rookwood Hotel","description":"Rookwood Hotel (PAc 91-51 B1 RollCBD12 F22). Front to side view of the building, facing east to southeast near the corner of North Main Street and East Broadway Street. B&amp;W. | Montana State Historic Preservation Office from the Photograph Archives at the Montana Historical Society | 1985 | Photographer unidentified","thumbnail":"https://storyofbutte.org/files/square_thumbnails/4e42396997bcff49dfc5a4e08e8e8456.jpg"}}}