Overview
The Dumas Brothel opened in 1890 in Butte's red-light district and operated continuously until 1982, a run often cited as the longest of any American brothel — a purpose-built Victorian of parlours, upstairs rooms and basement cribs that served the copper city's miners through boom, Prohibition and decline; the women who worked here lived hard and often precarious lives, and any telling owes them dignity rather than titillation, a standard the building's museum era has increasingly embraced. Preserved and opened for tours, the Dumas became one of Montana's most investigated buildings: owners, visitors and television crews describe a woman's presence associated in telling with madam Elinor Knott — whose death in the building in 1955 is part of its record, told gently — footsteps and voices in the basement cribs, cold spots, touches, and figures at the windows. Present the reports as museum-era telling layered on real, remembered lives; the deaths in its history handled respectfully. Tour availability varies with the building's ongoing preservation — confirm from official pages before publishing.