Bad Girls of Butte: Walk the Line
About this Event
Butte in 1900 was one of the wealthiest cities in the world. It was also one of the most exploitative. Thousands of miners arrived with money and appetite, and a system grew up around them. This included saloons, gambling halls, and a red-light district stretching along Mercury Street and Venus Alley that, at its peak, was one of the largest in the American West.
This fall, bundle up and walk those streets as the days get shorter, the air turns crisp, and Uptown Butte settles into its moodiest season. Bad Girls of Butte is a 1.5-hour walking tour through Butte’s historic red-light district, led by Chelsea Hogan of Montana Wonder Tours. Chelsea is an art historian, museum educator, and someone who has spent years helping people connect with history.
Along the way, you’ll get to know some of the ghosts of Butte’s past. Not the paranormal kind, necessarily, but the women whose lives still haunt the history of these streets. You’ll follow the same blocks where Lou Harper ran one of the most opulent brothels in the city, where Carrie Nation charged down Pleasant Alley in 1910 and got kicked out of the Irish World by madam Mae Malloy, and where the Dumas Brothel operated continuously from 1890 to 1982.
Against the backdrop of crisp air, moody skies, crunchy leaves, and some of Butte’s most storied historic buildings, we’ll dig into a past that is complicated, funny, heartbreaking, and very human.
We’re not here to romanticize or judge. We’re here to ask who these women actually were, how they survived in a place like Butte, what they built, and what was taken from them.
Their stories still have something to say about this city. Fall just happens to be a particularly good time to listen.
Where is it happening?
USD 7.18 to USD 39.19
