Butte Steam Plant Event Center

07/16/2025

Thank-you; Thank-YOU; THANK-YOU MONTANA !!
YOU HAVE SAVED THIS HISTORIC STRUCTURE FROM FURTHER ELEMENTAL DESTRUCTION... We SHALL have a roof !!
We are completely humbled by your support and cannot put to words the appreciation of all your efforts.
Back in MAY 2025 we asked, begged, and implored you to contact our active 69th MT Legislators that had cut us from HB 12- the MT Historic Preservation Grant (MHPG). Your outpouring of support got the Butte Steam Plant amended back on, and awarded, a portion of the original request for funds. While the awarded amount was less than half of our request, and may not get us "open", we are confident that we will stretch each COPPER penny into 2 and get the required structural updates, the roof, and upper windows, that will arrest the decay that has been eroding this magnificent building for well over 50+ years.
A requirement of the MHPG is that private Business owners MUST have 20% Matching Funds of the Awarded Grant... We are blessed to be matching with 87.5% ! And we will find more in order to be: "OPEN" for your personal events as soon as humanly possible!
Dept. of Commerce is the only entity that disperses the money directly to the completed and inspected work for authorized labor and materials. Your local Butte Headwaters RC&D Area, Inc. is the secondary layer of scrutiny putting each request of contract payment under a financial-microscope.
Please stay tuned - we will need to make up the shortfall and will be having FUN Fund-Raising events on site as soon as it is SAFE for the public!
( Please stay SAFE by staying OUT of the dangerous construction site - We are required to report all trespassers because of liability.)

Jason and Lita Christensen bought the last remaining structure from the historic Hansen Processing Plant in 2018 and plan to make it a community center

03/07/2025

Help save your Butte Steamplant...
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/158vys6qU5/

03/06/2025

Greeting Friends of the Steam Plant, We have an URGENT update and request of you (Before Sunday March 9th )
Last year we applied for the MT Historical Preservation Grant – We are currently sidelined in today’s Legislative process.
Please take 5 minutes ( Please be a respectful MT Voter )– Simply send an email to your Legislator with this subject line:
“Please Reconsider the Butte Steam Plant Event Center under HB-12 / HB-756”
Your Legislator can be found Here: https://www.legmt.gov/legislators/
Please include a paragraph of a heartfelt personal memory (Family member work at HANSEN PACKING ?), or the logical reasoning of not losing a Butte TREASURE (It is part of the Timber Butte landscape). We were sidelined from House Bill 12; MT Historic Preservation Grant under different criterion than we had applied – WE FIT ALL THE NEW CRITERION.
We do not expect the original asking amount because the budget just isn’t there –
BUT minimally we must Preserve the Envelope;
Chairman John Fitzpatrick said it best:
“…protecting the building envelope; in other words, fix the roof, fix the exterior (east) wall(s) fix the foundation; (our foundation is flawless reinforced concrete poured down to solid granite on Timber Butte in 1928) fix the doors and windows, so that the structure is intact, so that it can be developed for some other future purpose but you’re saving the structure at the same time.”
So Minimally we are asking to replace the 1)roof, 2)windows and 3)doors in that priority order. (Especially those Clarestory Windows on the Roof !! Who wants to go up there twice..? death-defying!) That will arrest the Freeze-thaw that is destroying the East Brick Wall (…a new brick dislocated this last below zero night because of frozen water expansion – Could have hit me in the head LOL )
Thank-YOU BUTTE AMERICA;
Jason & Lita Christensen