Burton K. Wheeler House

The modest house at twelve thirty-two East Second Street in Butte was the home of one of the most consequential politicians Montana ever produced. Burton K. Wheeler arrived from Massachusetts in nineteen oh five, lost his luggage in a poker game the night he stepped off the train, and liked the city enough to stay.

He built a law practice, then a political career, and served as United States Senator from Montana from nineteen twenty-three to nineteen forty-seven. In nineteen twenty-four he ran for Vice President on the Progressive Party ticket with Robert La Follette. He championed labor unions and civil liberties, shaped major New Deal legislation, and then broke with Franklin Roosevelt over the President's plan to expand the Supreme Court, a battle Wheeler won.

The house was declared a National Historic Landmark in nineteen seventy-six.