BUTTE — If you happen to be thumbing through newspapers from the late 1800s and early 1900s from Butte, you’ll find advertisements for men’s hats and Victorian dresses, but you’ll also find ads for fortune tellers and mystics.
In fact, according to the Butte-Silver Bow County historic preservation officer, Victorian Butte culture was obsessed with the occult and mysticism.
"Oh! Here we go. Right here. There’s Professor Kellogg. You’ll hear about him," says Kate McCourt as she flips through the old Butte Miner newspaper.
"I realized that there were so many of these advertisements in the classifieds that were basically these, you know, “The greatest fortune teller ever!” .... is coming to Butte," says McCourt.
WATCH: Did you know Victorian Butte was obsessed with fortune tellers and mystics?
McCourt is also part of a group that celebrates Butte’s history and culture with free events put on at the Butte Cultural Heritage Center.
In honor of Halloween, she is presenting “The Mystic and The Mountebank.”
"A mountebank is basically like a charlatan or a faker," says McCourt.
While researching another topic, Kate took note of the ever-present ads for mystics and fortune tellers plopped between articles about mine disasters and murder. The ads claimed to offer a way to communicate with dead loved ones or glimpse details about future lovers. But, for the bustling mining town, they also offered something else.
"It wasn’t just about your love life or communicating with your dead loved ones, it was also about: where should I invest my money?"
McCourt says the business of the occult was booming in Butte, especially for women, who had limited opportunities to have a career or make money at that time.
"Quite a few characters came through Butte and, you know, set up shop. Most of the seers and the people who had that clairvoyance...intuitiveness, were women, and they found their work to be quite lucrative."
The mystics styled themselves as doctors or reverends of occultism and used séances, trances, and card readings, among other methods that Kate will reveal in her talk.
"It’s Halloween, and so we are trying to kind of put on something that kind of fits into that theme of the spooky spiritualism."
You can catch Kate McCourt's free presentation on Oct. 28th at 7 o'clock at the Butte Cultural Heritage Center, located in the historic synagogue on West Galena Street in Uptown Butte.
