Granite Mountain Mining Company Office
By editor
Granite (near Philipsburg), Granite County, Montana
This two-story building went up about 1885 as one of Granite’s first structures, complete with the brick vault still visible on site. The office handled payroll for the Ruby Shaft and the two mills across the road. Newspapers of the day reported men paid entirely in silver coin, and merchants threatening to burn any paper money that crossed their counters—a silver camp’s idea of sound currency.
Charles D. McLure, Frank L. Perkins, and Captain John L. Plummer were the first three superintendents; the first dividend followed soon after Plummer took charge in 1885. Later, Superintendent Thomas Weir built a sixteen-by-sixteen hot-water plunge, drying room, and reading room for Ruby Shaft workers—an industrial hygiene experiment aimed at keeping wet miners from walking into winter air and into pneumonia.
North of the vault, a shallow hole marks the Buskett Mercantile, a company store that was itself a major business in Granite. The office building is what remains of a corporate nervous system: vault, payroll, and the small mercies that kept a mountain workforce alive long enough to dig another shift.
See also
- Mill A and B at Philipsburg, Granite County
- 102 West Kearney at Philipsburg, Granite County
- Bi-Metallic Aerial Tramway at Philipsburg, Granite County
