What you'll see · Site 02 of 03
The Dumas Brothel
The longest-running house of its kind in America, open from 1890 until 1982. It outlasted the mines, the unions, and most of the men who ran the town.
Hero photo · the Dumas entranceThe story
Who worked here, and what the records show.
Built in 1890 at the height of the copper boom, the Dumas operated openly for decades and quietly for decades after, a working house on Mercury Street right up until 1982. By the time the door finally closed, it was the last of its kind left standing anywhere in the country.
The women who lived and worked here were counted, licensed, and taxed by the same City of Butte that pretended not to see them. The building changed with the city: parlor rooms on the main floor, basement cribs out back where the rent was cheapest and the work was hardest, trapdoors, and tunnels running beneath downtown Butte. We'll walk you through who was here, what they paid, and what they were paid, straight from the record, with the names restored where we have them.
Today the Dumas survives as a museum, one of the few places in America where this history is preserved in the rooms where it actually happened.
Primary source
A real document excerpt drops in here: a tax-ledger line, a census entry, or a newspaper notice that names a person and a date.Silver Bow County records · 19XX
Then & now
The same walls, a century apart.
Archival images set beside the building as it stands today.
Archival · c.1900
Interior detail
Present daySee it in person
The Dumas is part of both tours.
Walk the Line passes it in daylight; After Dark goes inside: the Myra, the Dumas, or the full night that does both.
