History of Butte, Montana

Butte is a city in southwestern Montana established as a mining camp in the 1860s in the northern Rocky Mountains straddling the Continental Divide.

Butte became a hotbed for silver and gold mining in its early stages, and grew exponentially upon the advent of electricity in the late-nineteenth century due to the land's large natural stores of copper.

The city was also the site of various political events relating to is industrial roots and expansive workforce, and was home to strong labor activism and Socialist movements in the early-twentieth century.

Post-millennium economic forces in Butte have largely centered on technology and the health industry, as well as efforts to preserve the city's historic buildings and cultural sites.

[2] The southwestern side of the bowl is made of a large mass of granite known as the Boulder Batholith, which dates to the Cretaceous era.

[3] The land surrounding Butte around Silver Bow Creek was a hunting and fishing area for the native Salish peoples who had settlements to the northwest, near Missoula.

"[6] In 1874, William L. Farlin staked the Asteroid Mine (later known as the Travona), and was followed by an influx of additional miners seeking gold and silver.

There was anti-Chinese sentiment in the 1870s and onwards due to racism on the part of the white settlers, exacerbated by economic depression, and in 1895, the chamber of commerce and labor unions started a boycott of Chinese owned businesses.

Behind the brothel was the equally famous Venus Alley, where women plied their trade in small cubicles called "cribs".

Most ethnic groups in Butte, from Germans and Irish to Italians and various Eastern Europeans, including children, enjoyed the locally brewed lagers, bocks, and other types of beer.

Clark's expansion of the park was intended to "provide a place where children and families could get away from the polluted air of the Butte mining industry.

[17] The city's rapid expansion was noted in an 1889 frontier survey: "Butte, Montana, fifteen years ago a small placer-mining village clinging to the mountain side, has now risen to the rank of the first mining camp of the world... [It] is now the most populous city of Montana, numbering twenty-five thousand active, enterprising, prosperous inhabitants.

In 1899, Daly joined with William Rockefeller, Henry H. Rogers, and Thomas W. Lawson to organize the Amalgamated Copper Mining Company.

On the evening of January 15, 1895, an explosion occurred at the Kenyon-Connell Warehouse, which killed a total of 57 people (13 of whom were city firefighters) as well as numerous horses and livestock.

[33] Rivalry between IWW supporters and the WFM locals culminated in the Butte, Montana labor riots of 1914, and resulted in the loss of union recognition by the mine owners.

[35] Sparked by a tragic accident more than 2,000 feet (600 m) below the ground on June 8, 1917, a fire in the Granite Mountain shaft spewed flames, smoke, and poisonous gas through the labyrinth of tunnels including the connected Speculator Mine.

Of the 168 bodies removed from the mine, most had died due to lack of oxygen and smoke inhalation as opposed to the actual fire itself.

Due to the efforts of men such as Ernest Sullau, Manus Duggan, Con O'Neil, and J. D. Moore, some survived, but the event was the largest hard rock mining accident in history.

The disaster was also memorialized in the song, "Rox in the Box" on the album The King is Dead by the indie rock band, The Decemberists.

[43] Thousands of homes were destroyed in the Meaderville suburb and surrounding areas, McQueen and East Butte, to excavate the Berkeley Pit, which opened in 1954[41] by Anaconda Copper.

In 1983, an organization of low income and unemployed residents of Butte formed to fight for jobs and environmental justice; the Butte Community Union produced a detailed plan for community revitalization and won substantial benefits, including a Montana Supreme Court victory striking down as unconstitutional State elimination of welfare benefits.

The company stopped mining in 2000, but resumed in 2003 with higher metal prices, and continues at last report, employing 346 people.

The situation gained even more attention after as many as 342 migrating geese chose the pit lake as a resting place, resulting in their deaths.

[49] Many areas of the city, especially the areas near the old mines, show signs of urban blight but a recent influx of investors and an aggressive campaign to remedy blight has led to a renewed interest in restoring property in Uptown Butte's historic district,[51] which was expanded in 2006 to include parts of Anaconda and is now the largest National Historic Landmark District in the United States with nearly 6,000 contributing properties.

Arsenic and heavy metals such as lead are found in high concentrations in some spots affected by old mining, and for a period of time in the 1990s the tap water was unsafe to drink due to poor filtration and decades-old wooden supply pipes.

Environmental research and clean-up efforts have contributed to the diversification of the local economy in the post-millennium era, and signs of vitality remain, including a multimillion-dollar polysilicon manufacturing plant locating nearby in the 1990s and the city's recognition and designation in the late 1990s as an All-America City and also as one of the National Trust for Historic Preservation's Dozen Distinctive Destinations in 2002.