The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-04-16

tious lawyers who thus attempted to
turn Butte upside down lived long
enough to learn that they had fallen
into a careless blunder and misled
those who had accepted them as good
authority on the rights of claim jump
ers. The very point they raised had
been carefully covered in the federal
legislation under which the O'Bannon
conveyapces had been made.
Only Two Decades Ago.
To follow the record of real-estate
prices in Butte from squatter days
down to the present is, of course, out
of the question within the limits which
a part of this page of the Standard af
fords. The purpose this morning is
merely to refer to an instance here and
there and to show what the general
movement has been in the rapid ad-
vance from the times of OBannon
titles To begin with, all Butte practi-
cally was what the promoters would
describe as a fourteen-dollar PROPOSE
tion-ten for Uncle Sam, four for
OBrien O'Bannon's Office That was
only q or % years ago. There is a per-
centage of owners who hold valuable
lots to-day under the original purchase,
but there is a generous number OF own
ers of central real estate who, meas
ured by the scale of present prices, got
valuable property--as it has proved to
be-for next to nothing.
With the rest, there are instances in
which the cost to present owners is
tradition in which romance and reality
are so mixed as to make it no easy
task to name in dollars and cents the
actual purchase price. There is the
splendid Owsley corner, for instance.
You have doubtless heard the story to
the effect that it represents the stake
in a poker game. 1t was Joe Ransome's
corner-gossip has it that the lot passed
to Owsley on jacks up in poker game.
That doesn't appear to be the exact
fact but if the man who at some future
day writes up the history of Butte real
estate makes his copy say something
about poker games, instead of one par
ticular game, probably he can get a
certificate of accuracy from one or the
other of the men who know all about
the deal. Joel P. Ransome, who prob
ably took $4,000 with him when he left
Butte. several years ago, is a prosper
Gus citizen of California.
There were Others. If you could
catch him in the right mood for it, John
Noyes could probably tell you interest
ing stories of poker accounts trans
formed first into red-ink balances and
then into real estate that has proved
to be richly profitable. Then there's
the old-time but not well-defined story
carrying the name of Hank" Porter
in connection with the trade of the site
of the Beaver block, at the corner of
Main and Granite streets, for a bulldog;
they say that General Warren tells this
dog story well.
Lucky Ones Hung On.
At any rate, they were in luck who
bought early and hung on. Take, for
example, the piece of ground SO feet
front on Broadway and 81 feet deep,
Just wet of the Butte office of the
Standard and commonly known as the
Windsor hotel. That is to-day the prop
erty of James Hamilton. He bought it
in November, 1875, and he paid 5000 for
it. On this ground an old log school
house Stood The building had been
erected in the sixties, long before the
plating of Butte, and Mr.. Hamilton,
as the Standards memory is, purchas-
ed from the trustees. The property
hasn't stopped earning money
a minute of the time from that day to
this. The Standard might not be war
ranted in placing a present valuation
on Mr.. Hamilton's real estate, but in
the assessment roll this Broadway
frontage is appraised at $3.50 a foot
ground value, and, as the dealers would