Pizer Building

Location: Philipsburg, Granite County, Montana Coordinates: 46° 19.909′ N, 113° 17.569′ W Voice: Mark Twain Word Count: 1024

It is a curious fact of human nature that the men who dig the silver out of the ground rarely keep it, while the men who sell them the shovels to dig it with generally retire to comfortable houses in the capital. The Rocky Mountains in the 1880s were full of optimists who believed they were one pickaxe swing away from a fortune. Benjamin Pizer was not one of these optimists. He was the man who sold them the pickaxe, and the trousers to wear while swinging it, and the tobacco to smoke when the swinging produced nothing but blistered hands and a profound sense of geological betrayal.

Pizer arrived in Helena in 1869, having traveled all the way from Poland by way of various inconveniences. He was nineteen years old, possessed a wife named Jessie, a newborn son named David, and a capital reserve that could be accurately described as microscopic. He took what little money he had and purchased fifty pounds of dry goods. He then proceeded to carry these goods around the mining camps, peddling them to men who were entirely too busy looking for gold to go to a store. It is a hard way to make a living, walking up and down mountains with fifty pounds of merchandise on your back, but it teaches a man the value of a dollar, and more to the point, the value of a wagon.

After seven years of this pedestrian commerce, Pizer accumulated enough capital to buy that wagon. This expanded his territory considerably, allowing him to carry more goods to more miners who were finding less gold. By 1878, he had seen enough of the itinerant life and decided to let the customers come to him. He purchased a dry goods business in Philipsburg, a town that was just beginning to realize it was sitting on top of a mountain of silver.

The silver boom in Philipsburg was a magnificent spectacle of human greed and geological generosity. The Granite Mountain Mine and the Bi-Metallic Mine were pulling millions of dollars out of the earth, and the town was expanding with the frantic energy of a balloon being inflated by a steam engine. The arrival of the Northern Pacific Railroad only added to the frenzy, bringing in more miners, more machinery, and more people who needed to buy things from Benjamin Pizer.

In 1887, Pizer decided it was time to upgrade his establishment. He invested in a one-story brick vernacular style building on East Broadway. It was a solid, respectable structure, the kind of building that says the owner intends to stay a while and expects to be paid in cash. The local newspaper, the Philipsburg Mail, took note of his enterprise on September 1, 1887, with an advertisement that read: "Removed! Removed! My Entire Stock Gents' Furnishings, Notions Stationary ETC., to Connolly's Building, opposite Old Stand. BEN PIZER."

From this new establishment, Pizer sold furniture, notions, and tobacco. He provided the miners with the comforts of civilization, or at least as much civilization as could be shipped in on a train and sold at a reasonable markup. It is proof of his business acumen that he thrived in a town where fortunes were made and lost with the swing of a silver market.

While Pizer was selling dry goods on one side of the building, a saloon was operating on the east side. This was a convenient arrangement for the miners, who could purchase a new shirt and then immediately go next door to spill whiskey on it. It was a perfect ecosystem of commerce and recreation, and Pizer sat comfortably in the middle of it, collecting the profits.

Pizer was not merely a merchant; he was a citizen of consequence. He integrated himself into the Philipsburg community with the same thoroughness he applied to his inventory. He served as a Republican county commissioner, a position that requires a certain tolerance for public complaint and a flexible understanding of the word "progress." He was also a member of the Knights of Pythias and the Oddfellows, fraternal organizations that provided the men of the town with an excuse to wear elaborate hats and conduct secret rituals away from the supervision of their wives.

Despite his success in Philipsburg, Pizer never entirely severed his ties to Helena. He was a founding member of the Helena Hebrew Benevolent Society, an organization dedicated to the proposition that charity is a duty, not an option. The Jewish merchants of the Rocky Mountain West were a tight-knit network, supporting each other in a landscape that was often indifferent to their survival. They brought commerce and stability to towns that were otherwise prone to the chaotic fluctuations of the mining industry.

In 1896, the silver market collapsed, and the boomtown of Philipsburg suddenly found itself with a surplus of empty buildings and a deficit of optimism. The Sherman Silver Purchase Act had been repealed, and the price of silver plummeted faster than a dropped anvil. The great mines shut down, the miners packed their bags, and the merchants looked at their ledgers with a growing sense of alarm.

Pizer, having the good sense to recognize a sinking ship when he saw one, packed up his family and returned to Helena. He had made his money, established his reputation, and survived the boom and the bust. He lived out the rest of his days in the capital, a respected merchant and a pioneer of the Montana territory.

He died in Helena in 1921 and was buried in the Home of Peace Jewish cemetery. His wife, Jessie, survived him by sixteen years, eventually moving to California after the 1935 earthquake damaged their Helena home. The building he constructed in Philipsburg remains, a solid brick reminder of a time when a man could walk into town with fifty pounds of dry goods on his back and build a life out of the proceeds. It stands on East Broadway, outlasting the silver mines, the railroad, and the men who swung the pickaxes.

See Also:

• Weinstein Building
• Philipsburg Historic District
• Granite Ghost Town

References: [1] Historical Marker Database, Pizer Building, https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=45217 [2] Granite County History, Mettle of Granite County Book One Chapter Three, http://granitecountyhistory.blogspot.com/2016/09/mettle-of-granite-county-book-one_20.html