Butte’s Dumas Brothel: Historic, Haunted and Heartbreaking.

Perhaps as alone and broken as the souls who once sold their bodies there, the Dumas Brothel's brick shell sits, somewhat alone, on East Mercury Street in Uptown Butte.  It's more than a shell, though.  Although in disrepair and without residents, some say that the Dumas remains active with the troubled spirits of those who once toiled there.  Many of the outfits, beds and other remnants of their trade lay open and on display at what was one America's  longest-running house of ill-repute, which only closed in 1982.

The first thing you notice when you walk into the Dumas today is how relatively open it is.  A glass atrium sheds natural illlumination to the two above-ground stories during the daytime, shedding light on the rooms on the first floor built to look like storefronts.  Down the hall and to your right you will find the stairs which lead to the more plush second-story rooms which were frequented by the more affluent clientele.  It is upstairs that, legend has it, the restless sprit of a former Madam still roam as well as a spirit that  is called "The Judge" as discussed on an episode of The Travel Channel's "Ghost Adventures."

If you take the stairs leading down, you get an entirely different feeling.

The basement, or "cribs", is where the average miner would spend his meager wages in a smaller, dirtier, more crowded area with lesser-desired workers.  The conditions were horrid.  Suicides and "unexplained' deaths were not uncommon.  You can practically feel the desperation in it's dirty walls today.

So, is it really haunted?  I have been to the Dumas several times, once on a paranormal tour.  All I got was a bad feeling--I saw or heard absolutely nothing paranormal.  Others have pictures and recordings of things from the Dumas that they claim prove an otherworldly presence is on hand.  You may have to be the judge yourself.  The Dumas is frequently toured and investigated and you can find out more from buttemuletours.com.