Weinstein Building

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

There is a certain type of man who looks at a mountain and sees a hole in the ground, and another type who looks at the same mountain and sees a line of men waiting to buy a shovel. William Weinstein was decidedly the latter. He arrived in the United States from Poland in 1855, a young boy with a head full of ambition and pockets full of nothing. By the time he reached Montana in 1865, he had learned that the surest way to strike it rich in a mining camp was to let other men do the digging while you did the selling.

Weinstein started small, running a store in Cable, a place where the optimism was thick and the gold was thin. In 1867, he moved his operations to Philipsburg, a town that was just beginning to suspect it might be important. He opened a general merchandise store, and as the town grew, so did his inventory. By 1877, he had built a substantial brick building at 210 East Broadway, a structure that announced to the world that William Weinstein was not a man who intended to pack up his tent and leave when the silver ran out.

The Weinstein Building was a marvel of frontier commerce. It was the kind of place where a miner could buy a new pair of boots, a sack of flour, and a dress for his wife, all under one roof. Weinstein was a man who understood the value of variety. In 1887, he returned from a trip east and promised the townspeople he would exhibit "the most complete and select stock of general merchandise, notions and ladies' dress goods that was ever brought into the territory." It was a bold claim, but in a town where the main form of entertainment was watching the silver prices fluctuate, a new shipment of dress goods was a major event.

Weinstein was not just a merchant; he was a pillar of the community, which is a polite way of saying he was involved in everything that involved money. He served as an alderman for the City of Philipsburg, a position that allowed him to argue about the grading of streets and the paying of bills. He was also the vice-president of the Merchant and Miner's Bank, an institution that held the town's collective hopes and fears in its vault.

He was an astute businessman, the kind who knew when to extend credit and when to call in the sheriff. In 1882, when the Algonquin Mine shut down, Weinstein secured a judgment against the company for eight thousand dollars. He was not a man to let a little thing like a corporate collapse stand between him and his money.

But for all his success, Weinstein's life was not without its tragedies. On a Sunday in July 1893, he rode up to Granite in a buckboard drawn by one of his black horses. On the way back down the steep, winding road, the horse decided it had had enough of the slow pace and bolted. Weinstein, a man who was used to controlling ledgers and aldermen, found himself unable to control a panicked horse. The buckboard struck a rut, and Weinstein was thrown out. He died a few hours later, leaving behind a widow, three children, and a town that suddenly realized how much it relied on the man who sold them their shovels.

His funeral was a grand affair, attended by a large delegation of the Knights of Pythias and the Odd Fellows, organizations that appreciate a good funeral almost as much as they appreciate a secret handshake. He was buried in Helena, following Jewish rites, a long way from Poland but a fitting resting place for a man who had built a life out of the dust of the Rocky Mountains.

The tragedy did not end there. Just seven weeks after William's death, his youngest son, Abe, drowned in the Bi-Metallic plunge bath. He was not yet fifteen, a boy who had begged his mother to let him go swimming and never came home. It was a cruel blow to a family that had already suffered too much.

But the Weinstein family was made of stern stuff. They continued to run the business, advertising in the local papers and supplying the town with the necessities of life. The Weinstein Building stood as a monument to their resilience, a brick-and-mortar reminder that while fortunes may rise and fall, people will always need a place to buy a new pair of boots.

The building itself is a fine example of commercial architecture, with its large display windows and sturdy construction. It is the kind of building that looks like it could withstand a silver crash, a runaway horse, and a century of Montana winters. And indeed, it has. It stands today on East Broadway, a quiet survivor of a loud and boisterous era.

When you walk past the Weinstein Building, you can almost hear the echo of William Weinstein promising the town the finest dress goods in the territory. You can almost see the miners coming in to buy their supplies, their pockets heavy with silver and their heads full of dreams. It is a place where history is not just remembered; it is built into the walls.

See Also:

• Pizer Building
• Philipsburg Historic District
• Granite Ghost Town

References: [1] Historical Marker Database, Weinstein Building, https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=45212 [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