1912 Beaux Arts courthouse where a hanged prospector is said to walk the halls
155 W Granite Street, Butte, MT 59701
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
No admission fee; a working government building open during business hours. Exterior viewable anytime.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Large multi-story Beaux Arts public building on a sloped Uptown Butte street
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1912 · Beaux Arts Public Architecture · Site of 1906 Miles Fuller Execution · Silver Bow County Government Seat
The current Butte-Silver Bow Courthouse opened to the public in July 1912, a Beaux Arts building in Uptown Butte that still houses most of the city-county government. It stands near the corner of Granite and Montana streets, the location of an earlier county building.
That earlier building was the setting for one of Butte's most-remembered executions. On October 24, 1904, the body of Henry J. Gallahan, an aging placer miner, was found shot near the McKinley School on Park Street. Suspicion fell on Miles Fuller, a prospector also in his sixties; the two men had feuded over alleged ore theft from claims near the School of Mines. Fuller was convicted of the murder and maintained his innocence through appeals that reached the Montana Supreme Court, which upheld the verdict.
Fuller was hanged on a portable gallows on May 18, 1906. Newspaper accounts of the day reported a large crowd, some with courthouse passes and many watching from the surrounding streets. He was one of ten men executed at the Silver Bow County courthouse grounds, and the case has been retold often enough that he is the best-remembered of them. Some accounts continue to argue he was wrongly convicted.
Sources
Miles Fuller is the figure most often named in the courthouse's haunting accounts. After his 1906 hanging on the grounds, later stories held that his restless presence remained, and he is described as the best-known of the men executed there in part because of that reputation.
The most repeated detail is that the footsteps attributed to Fuller follow the layout of the older county building rather than the current one, as though he is walking rooms that no longer exist. Staff accounts collected by regional writers describe footsteps in the upper halls after hours, an elevator that moves on its own, and books falling from shelves. Some retellings connect the lingering presence to the belief that Fuller was innocent.
The haunting is not part of any official program at the courthouse, which remains an operating government building. The accounts circulate through local newspaper features and Butte-area ghost roundups rather than venue marketing.
Notable Entities
The courthouse is an active government building. Visitors can view the 1912 Beaux Arts exterior and the public lobby and corridors during business hours. There is no formal ghost program; the haunting accounts come from after-hours staff reports.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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