The Haunted Copper King Mansion, Butte: Sleep in a Copper Baron's House

The Copper King Mansion stands on the corner of Granite and Idaho streets in Uptown Butte, in the heart of the old mining city. Copper King William Andrews Clark built it between 1884 and 1888, and most of what you see inside is still original: frescoed ceilings, stained glass, parquet floors, hand-carved fireplaces and a 64-foot ballroom on the third floor. It is one of the most unusual stays on our list of haunted hotels in Montana, because you are sleeping in a house museum that a family still lives in.

The ghost stories here are quieter than at Montana’s old railroad hotels. They come from visitors and tour guests rather than from the owners, who are reported not to believe the house is haunted at all. Below are the stories people tell, the real history of the Clark family and the Cote family who saved the house, and practical tips for booking one of its four guest rooms.

The ghosts of the Copper King Mansion

The pale figure in the basement and hallway

The story told most often is of a light-colored, hazy shape, more like fog than a person, seen in the basement and along the first-floor hallway. Visitors describe it drifting rather than walking, and it is gone by the time anyone looks properly.

Nobody has put a name to it, and none of the published accounts claim it is Clark himself, even though his portrait still watches over the house.

The cold presence in the game room

Clark’s billiard room, often called the game room, is where visitors most often describe a sudden, very cold presence, as if someone were standing close behind them. Old houses have drafts and cold spots, so there may be an ordinary explanation, but the story keeps coming back in write-ups of the mansion.

Doors, and the trunk in the attic

Doors in the mansion are said to open and close on their own now and then. The most specific story is of a locked trunk in the attic that was found open with nobody near it.

Write-ups of these stories are careful to call the evidence circumstantial, and the Cote family, who have lived here since 1953, are reported not to believe the house is haunted. We include them as stories visitors tell, not as anything the family claims.

Music and footsteps in the ballroom

The 64-foot ballroom at the top of the house is the other spot that comes up again and again. Some visitors say they feel a ghostly presence there, and in 2022 Montana radio stations repeated a House Beautiful round-up that named the Copper King Mansion the most haunted house in the state.

One overnight guest, a descendant of a woman Clark had raised, wrote in 2010 that he lay in Clark’s bed and heard what sounded like dancing in the ballroom above his head. He was the first to point out that it was probably the boiler or rain on the roof. It is a good example of how the stories here usually go: a sound, a feeling, and a very old house.

The most haunted rooms and places to look

• The third-floor ballroom: The 64-foot ballroom at the top of the house, where visitors describe a presence and one guest heard what sounded like dancing overhead.
• The billiard (game) room: Where a sudden cold presence is most often reported.
• The basement and first-floor hallway: Where a pale, fog-like shape is said to drift past.
• The Master Bedroom Suite: Clark’s own suite, with sycamore woodwork, a hand-carved fireplace and a burled walnut bed. Not linked to a specific story, but the room most guests want.
• The attic: Not open to guests, but home to the story of the locked trunk that opened by itself.

History of The Copper King Mansion

William Andrews Clark was born in Pennsylvania in 1839 and came to Montana in 1863. He made his fortune in Butte as a banker, supplier and mine owner and became one of the city’s three Copper Kings, the rival magnates who fought for control of the city’s copper mining. His first election to the U.S. Senate, in 1899, collapsed in a bribery scandal; he went back and served from 1901 to 1907.

Clark built this house between 1884 and 1888. The mansion’s own history credits D. T. McDevitt with directing construction and W. F. Beall and Co. of Chicago with the woodwork, while the National Register listing names C. H. Brown as architect. Most materials were imported, and the family puts the cost of materials and craftsmanship at around $260,000, a huge sum for 1880s Butte. The result was a 34-room Romanesque Revival Victorian house with nine fireplaces and mantels carved from different woods, frescoed ceilings, stained glass, a chapel, a library, a billiard room and the third-floor ballroom. It was wired for electricity when it was built, with chandeliers that could run on gas or electric power.

The house did not stay with the Clarks. By the 1950s it belonged to a Catholic girls’ school and stood empty. In 1953 Butte businesswoman Anna Cote bought it, and her daughter Ann Cote-Smith spent years tracking down antiques to refill the rooms. Some of Clark’s own furniture is still in the house.

The mansion was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1970 and had a major restoration in 2012. Clark’s youngest daughter, Huguette, is the subject of the book Empty Mansions, and one of the guest rooms is named for her.

Today Anna Cote’s granddaughter, Erin Sigl, who moved in at age 12, still lives in the house, and her daughter Maria Gibbs runs the bed and breakfast and the house tours. The family takes on one preservation project a year, from roof and boiler repairs to replacing a non-original bathtub with a period clawfoot tub.

Tips for a haunted stay

• Book well ahead for summer. With only four guest rooms, the mansion fills quickly between May and September.
• Pick the Master Bedroom Suite or the Family Suite if you want a private bathroom. Andree’s Room and Huguette’s Room share a bathroom with a birdcage shower.
• Every guest gets a free tour: guided in summer, self-guided in winter. Use it to see the ballroom and game room in daylight before the house goes quiet.
• In summer, public tours run through the guest rooms between about 10am and 4pm, so plan to check in after the last tour.
• No pets are allowed, and Montana’s 9% bed tax is added to the room rate.
• Make it a weekend of haunted Butte: Haunted Rooms runs ghost hunts at the Old St. James Hospital, a few minutes’ drive away.

More haunted hotels nearby

• Boulder Hot Springs, Boulder: a hot springs inn with a bookable haunted suite, under an hour north
• Fairweather Inn, Virginia City: an 1860s gold rush hotel where we run ghost hunts
• Sacajawea Hotel, Three Forks: a 1910 railroad hotel about an hour east
• Haunted hotels in Montana

Sources

Facts on this page are checked against the hotel’s own website, historic records and news coverage. Ghost stories are reported as guests, staff and local historians tell them. Read how we rate haunted hotels.

• The Copper King Mansion: official site
• The Copper King Mansion: Rooms and rates
• Wikipedia: Copper King Mansion
• Intermountain Histories: The Copper King Mansion
• KXLF: Family preserves Butte's historic Copper King Mansion (March 2026)
• Visit Montana: Copper King Mansion B&B
• OnlyInYourState: Copper King Mansion
• The Moose 94.7: Is this famous landmark the most haunted house in Montana?

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