I recently passed through Butte, Montana, the formerly wide open mining town to end all mining towns. It is filled with somewhat rundown Victorian mansions, hotels, theaters, stores, banks, office buildings, miner homes, bordellos, saloons, etc. As a result, I am reading Dashiel Hammett's "Red Harvest" which takes place in the 1920s in a fictional version of Butte. Hammett was a Pinkerton agent in Butte before he started writing. A fascinating character from Butte was an early feminist writer named Mary MacLane known as the "Wild Woman of Butte". A nonfiction history of Butte is available from Amazon; "Mining Cultures: Men, Women, and Leisure in Butte, 1914-41" (Women in American History) by Mary Murphy. You can read a free exerpt. Frank Little, a murdered labor union organizer is another interesting character. I think if you do some research about Butte, you will become fascinated by the possibilities.
As a result of my visit, I am considering a noir style novel set in the 1920s or 30s. Butte has everything; crime, corruption, tragedies, struggling immigrants from all over the world, labor strife, corporate tyrranny, ruthless industrialists, environmental disasters, big city architecture, magnificent scenery. I have just published a similar novel set in Nebraska during the 1940s (Blue Hotel by JT Conroe, pardon the plug), and I would love to do something similar for Butte. I might even use some of the same characters.
Good luck with whatever you decide.
