The Rockwood Speakeasy – Butte, Montana

James Pratt, proprietor of the Red Boot and Shoe Company, built the Rockwood (also called the Rookwood), in Butte, Montana in 1912. The ground level housed the shoe company’s shop, and the floors above functioned as a hotel. Pratt designed the building to attract attention and business with décor like Tudor-arching, green tile, a copper-clad cornice, a wrought iron staircase, and marble wainscoting and floors. The Rockwood’s unique ambiance and railroad access attracted elite and traveling patrons alike.

Before Prohibition, Butte, Montana, boomed as a mining town and gained notoriety for its lively bar and entertainment scene. When the Montana government banned alcohol distribution and consumption in December of 1918, Butte bars moved underground—into basements and tunnels beneath storefronts—and continued to sell alcohol. During this time, over one hundred underground speakeasies, including the Rockwood, operated in the city. In 1918, Pratt converted the building’s basement into a speakeasy. This underground area matched the hotel’s elegance above, attracted numerous clients, and became one of Butte’s more famous drinking spots.

In 1923, one of Rockwood’s moonshine clients, Mae Holberg, died by suicide after overconsuming alcohol. The 29 January 1923 issue of The Butte Daily Post describes the harrowing story. Holberg attended an all-night party at the Rockwood. Witnesses and police confirmed this party involved large quantities of illegal liquor. Around 7:00 A.M., Holberg drank one and a half ounces of Lysol, a fatal dose that ended her life within hours. A friend at the party told officers he believed Holberg took her own life because “she was despondent,” he said, “one or two drinks always made her despondent and downhearted.” Tragic stories like this made the Rockwood notorious in the illegal drinking world.

After Prohibition ended, Butte’s underground scene lost its appeal. Shop owners no longer needed to hide their liquor, so they moved alcohol sales to street levels, and many permanently sealed off their speakeasies. Rockwood’s basement became one of these buried speakeasies, while the rest operated as a hotel and retail space. In 2004, workers renovating the Rockwood Hotel discovered a closet filled with untouched coats from decades past. Behind the coats, they uncovered a two-way mirror which concealed a hole that opened into the Rockwood Speakeasy—frozen in time since the Prohibition era.

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