September 3, 2004—Blasting Into Butte

As the new month turned over we joined some fellow RV friends we met last year in Moab, Harry and Sheila, at Fairmont RV Park which is about mid way between Anaconda and Butte. All of us took one afternoon to run in to Butte and look around. 

This area of Montana is literally overflowing with minerals, staining the soil various hues of soft colors. Within these hills, some of the world’s most intense mining has taken place, with the primary cash flows generated by a century of copper and silver. It made some people quite wealthy, as evidenced by Charles Clark’s Copper King Mansion (built in 1884), now being operated as a 34 room bed and breakfast, and the home he had built for his son, now called the Arts Chateau. Other palatial examples of Butte’s wealth run rampant through the uptown blocks of this city built on a hill.

One arrives in Butte from higher elevations, regardless of the direction of travel. The city sits in a bowl but is itself built on the fabulously rich hillside which looks gnawed out by eons of hungry teeth. The old mine head frames still abound and dot the landscape like a picture made of connect-the-dots, although the only current mine still in operation is the Continental Pit which produces about 6 pounds of copper for every 2000 pounds of processed rock.  

Old town Butte appears a little ragged around the edges; obviously running into hard times in this modern age as we note many fabulous old buildings allowed to run to derelict or nearly derelict ruin. Knowing the history their walls could speak, it seems such a shame. These buildings would be gentrified in a second if located in Bend, OR or anywhere in California. Since Butte Hill is one of history’s richest mining camps in the world, there’s obviously a great deal of greed and squander located somewhere in this story. The city has produced over two billion dollars worth of gold, silver, copper, and zinc. Two billion is a lot of bucks; certainly more than Butte shows to the world. Beneath, it’s honeycombed with over 3,000 miles of workings and shafts that reach a depth of 4,000 feet

Arguably the most toxic hole in the ground in the U.S.is being battled here in Butte—at the Berkeley Pit. This huge hole of open pit mining has been filling with water at the rate of 12 feet a year. Looking down at its oily, murky soup of hundreds of toxic minerals, including arsenic and sulfate, you can understand the problem. The pit is already about 1700 feet deep with water and when it reaches an elevation of 5410 feet, it will be deemed critical to the health of Butte’s groundwater table. A new treatment plant has been built with millions of gallons of water a year being pumped out of the pit in an attempt to stave off the future. They hope to have everything in check by the year 2018.

We decide to visit the World Museum of Mining, which is located right next to Montana Technical Institute, a venerable old college sitting high on the hill to the west of town. The mining museum is at the original location of the Orphan Girl Mine and head frame, in operation from 1875-1956. Major production here was silver and the mine is said to have had excellent working conditions with temperatures running some of the coolest on Butte Hill at 55-65 degrees. Other mines ran as high as 100 F.

In addition to a couple of inside buildings filled with mining history, memorabilia, and photographs, there is a fairly large mineral display and a replicated village fashioned on old Butte. This village does have a few original buildings, including St. Patrick’s church, a homestead log cabin, and the mine superintendent’s house. Each building, replicated or not, is chock full of original items and antiques.

A large portion of the museum is the yard ornamentation, filled with all sorts of old mining equipment. One can easily spend a couple of hours here; the entry fee is currently $7/pp and we found it well worthwhile.

Much too soon for our tastes, we leave Butte behind and follow our friends to Helena so we can gain a little more time with them. Helena is Montana’s capital and about 70 miles north east of Butte so just a pleasant morning’s jump up the freeway. The weather has been cold the past few days and our thoughts are turning towards moving farther south after spending a couple days here.