Copper King Mansion

A 34-room Romanesque Revival mansion built between 1884 and 1888 by W.A. Clark, the most ostentatious of Butte's three Copper Kings. The interior is preserved almost untouched: nine fireplaces, frescoed ceilings, hand-painted Tiffany stained glass, a built-in pipe organ, and bedrooms with the original wallpaper.

The house is still privately owned, operating as a bed-and-breakfast — you can sleep in one of the bedrooms — and tours run during the day. Worth the modest entry fee for the look at how a copper baron of the 1880s actually lived.

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A story
William Andrews Clark — one of the three Copper Kings — bought himself a US Senate seat from Montana in 1899 with bribes so brazen that the Senate refused to seat him. He resigned, bought the seat again from a friendlier set of legislators, and finally took it in 1901. Mark Twain called him 'as rotten a human being as can be found anywhere under the flag'.