Meet Your Guides

In addition to expert guide service, our historians often participate in Living History programs
such as the Great Train Robbery, Ghost Walks, specialized tours, and step-on guide service.
As historians, our guides tell you Butte's fabulous stories, well researched with background details. It is often said that Butte needs no embellishing — but you'll also hear a famous story or two that is NOT true - and learn why!


DENNY DUTTON, a retired US Army Artillery captain, is co-founder of Old Butte Historical Adventures. He graduated from Battleground High School in Washington in 1971, and from Cameron University (Lawton, OK) in 1980. He is a historian, vintage car restorer and vintage stock car racer who immigrated to Butte in 1999. Denny is a Red Cross volunteer, and often drives the Chamber of Commerce trolley for special events. He served as one of the driver guides for the trolley for several years, an introduction to Butte's history that led directly to the 2005 founding of Old Butte Historical Adventures, where he is now the Head Guide. Denny is a member of the Chamber of Commerce Convention & Visitors Bureau Board, and serves on the Executive Committee of the 2009 Vernacular Architecture Forum in Butte, and is the Volunteer Coordinator for the National Folk Festival (Butte, 2008-2010). News article • News article	NICOLE VON GAZA moved to Butte in 1997 and again in 2006. She lived in Alaska for 17 years, where she graduated from the University of Alaska, Southeast. She worked as an archaeologist and Museum Tech in Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park in Skagway, Alaska. Nicole has over a decade of tourguide experience with The Skaguay Hack, The White Pass & Yukon Route Railroad, and the Skagway Streetcar Company. A seamstress, Nicole worked a year in wardrobe for the Fabulous Palm Springs Follies and 7 years for Cirque du Soleil in Las Vegas. She owns Uptown Butte Glass Works and is also a member of the Butte CPR and sings with the Butte Symphony Chorale. In 2007, Nicole completed an extensive cataloguing project for the hundreds of Butte Chinese artifacts found in an archaeological dig for the Mai Wah Museum.	DICK GIBSON is a geologist, historian, and former Study Leader for Smithsonian Journeys around the world. He was Education Director at the World Museum of Mining (2003-2005) and has led tours with Old Butte Historical Adventures since 2006. Educated at Indiana University (and Indiana's Geologic Field Station in the Tobacco Root Mts. east of Butte), he is author of two books, History of the Earth: A Perpetual Calendar, and What Things Are Made Of (in progress) and co-author of a Butte Citizens for Preservation and Revitalization book on historic stained glass in Butte. He works with a group of volunteers on Virtual Historic Butte. He's an appointed member of the Butte-Silver Bow County Historic Preservation Commission and is the Tours & Guidebook Chairman for the Vernacular Architecture Forum (Butte 2009). Dick works with the Clark Fork Watershed Education Project and the Montana Bureau of Mines and Geology, as well as on oil exploration projects around the world as part of his consulting business. Frank Little article • News article • Book article • Web site

CINDI SHAW is a professional historical researcher and founder of Butte's Mother Bottego House. In 2006, Cindi was elected to the Butte-Silver Bow Council of Commissioners, and she is active in Butte CPR in addition to numerous other community projects. She was trained as a certified legal investigator at the University of Illinois and the University of Wisconsin. Cindi has extensive experience with the Butte Archives, an invaluable aid to all the Old Butte Historical Adventures programs which are designed to be historically correct. Cindi is also a musician, and contributed significantly to our discoveries about Willie Lindell, who lived in the Stephens Hotel. News article	PAT MOHAN is a Butte native, grandson of Tony Canonica, the Swiss immigrant who built Tony's Tin Shop and his wife Myra who ran the brothel above it. His personal family stories are integral to our tours of the Tin Shop, Myra Brothel, and Cabbage Patch. Pat has been involved in teaching for much of his career, including serving as a history teacher, special education teacher, and dean in the Butte Public Schools from 1973 to 2000. He holds a Master's degree in Education from the University of Montana and served as an officer and Public Affairs official for the Montana Army National Guard from 1975 to 1996. News article on Tony's Tin Shop	BOB McMURRAY, shown here in costume as our own "Cabbage Patch" kid, came to Butte from Denver. He is a routine participant in the Great Train Robbery and like all of our guides is a student of Butte history. He also assists his wife Debbie Pierce in managing the White Owl Emporium, where Old Butte Historical Adventures has its headquarters. Bob and Debbie are the owners of Old Butte Historical Adventures.

	RICH STURTRIDGE is a 1992 graduate of the University of Wyoming. He has lived in Butte for 11 years, and has a passion for history. Rich worked for five seasons as a tour guide at Lewis and Clark Caverns State Park, and has also worked for four summers at the World Museum of Mining. He has explored dozens of Montana's ghost towns and brings this experience to his tours with Old Butte Historical Adventures.

Historic Guide Center 117 North Main Street • Butte, MT 59701 • (406) 498-3424 • E-mail • Links