Reeder's Alley is a short lane of stone miners' cabins built in the 1870s, tucked into the hillside near the south end of Last Chance Gulch. They are among the oldest surviving structures in Helena — squat, thick-walled buildings that have outlasted most of the grander architecture that surrounded them. The alley takes its name from Louis Reeder, who built many of the structures as rental units for miners and laborers. What he built was rudimentary housing, and what you see today is a remarkably intact survivor from Helena's roughest years.
The complex was restored in the 1970s and now houses a restaurant and small shops. The best way to experience it is simply to walk through slowly, noting the building materials — local stone, hand-cut, fitted without mortar in places — and imagining the density of life that once pressed into these narrow quarters. It's one of the most evocative historic sites in Helena, and it costs nothing to visit. The contrast with the ornate Victorian buildings a few blocks north makes the point about Helena's social history more clearly than any museum exhibit.