Butte, MT

Butte, MT is about 10 miles east of where we were staying in Fairmont RV Park and was one of the places we had planned to investigate during our stop in the area. Butte began as a mining town with gold strikes in the 1860s and silver strikes in the 1870s. About the time gold and silver began to run out in the 1880s, interest in electrical power began to grow and the demand for copper for use in wires to conduct the electricity started to rise. Butte also happened to have abundance of copper-bearing ore, and the small town soon became one of the most prosperous cities in the country because of copper. Evidence of the history of mining can be seen in the headframes that dot the hillside over Butte even today. The headframes are where the miners entered the hard rock mines and where ore was hauled out.

Butte, which was known as "The Richest Hill on Earth," produced more mineral wealth than any other mining district up until the middle of the 20th century. Over 350,000,000 tons of ore including gold, silver, copper, zinc and maganese were mined during this time.  There are 49 miles of vertical mine shafts, some of which descend as much as a mile deep, and there are at least 512 mines with 10,000 miles of horizontal passageways.

Three men known as the "Copper Kings" came to prominence in the Butte mining industry in the late 1800s. The Copper Kings (Marcus Daly, William Andrews Clark, and F. Augustus Heinze) fought many financial, legal, and political battles for control of the copper industry.

F. Augustus Heinze was the last of the Copper Kings to arrive in Butte. Although he didn't arrive until 1889 when Marcus Daly and William Clark were well established, he quickly caught up to them through the use of mining law and court suits. Heinze was known to bend the law to fit his interests and to buy off judges to help him win lawsuits. In 1906, however, Heinze sold his mining interests and returned to New York. He eventually lost his fortune and died in 1914 at the age of 44.

Marcus Daly, an Irish-American immigrant, was the second of the copper kings to arrive in Butte. Daly went to Butte in 1876 to buy and manage a silver mine for the Walker Brothers. In 1880, Daly sold his interest in the Walker mine and bought the Anaconda Mine with the help of financial backing from George Hearst, father of William Randolph Hearst. William Randolph Hearst was the media mogul who built Hearst Castle, which we visited earlier this year in California.

Shortly after Daley bought the Anaconda Mine, the silver ore ran out; but he subsequently discovered the mine was rich in copper. The timing couldn't have been better because of the growing demand for copper (WHY?) in the early 1880s. Marcus Daly was probably the most influential person in the development of the copper industry, and his mining company grew to become one of the four largest companies in the world by the 1920s. We'll have more about Marcus Daly in our next post.

William Andrews Clark was born in Connellsville, PA, which is near our former hometown of Pittsburgh. He moved west with his family to Iowa, and eventually ended up going to Butte in 1872 making him the first of the Copper Kings to arrive. In Butte, Clark built the first smelter, the first electric power plant, and the first water system in Butte. He also owned newspapers, railroads, and other businesses.

In 1884, Clark began construction of a 34-room, Queen Anne mansion in Butte. The house, which is now a bed and breakfast, is open for guided tours. We made the Clark mansion our first stop in Butte.

 

Construction of the house was completed in 1888 at an estimated cost of $260,000. Although that was an astounding amount of money at the time, it represented an amount equal to only about half a day of William Clark's earnings of $17,000,000 a month. (Yes, that's millions.) Clark also maintained homes in New York; Washington, D. C.; Santa Barbara, CA; and Paris.

Throughout the house there are richly-carved hardwoods like the fireplaces and the main stairway, which is shown in the next photo.

 

Being a former woodworker, Paul was interested in the carvings, which are very well done. The next photo shows a closeup of some of the detail of a built-in bookcase.

The stained glass window in the next photo is on the landing on the main staircase. The window is on the west side of the house and casts a warm glow down the steps in the afternoon.

In addition to being a beautiful showplace, the house was also state-of-the-art. In addition to having indoor plumbing, the house has chandeliers with provision for both gas and electric lights. Clark knew electric lighting, although not yet available when the house was being built, was the coming thing.

The next photo shows the formal parlor, which is filled with antiques of the period. When William Clark died in New York in 1925, all the contents of the house in Butte were sold. About 25 original items have been located and returned to the house.

 

A few blocks from the Clark mansion is the Old Lexington Mill and Gardens. The Lexington Mill dates back to about 1867 and was used to crush ore so it could be processed. Today the mill is surrounded by a garden.

   

The large pulley to the left was driven by a steam engine at 60 rpm. The arms on the upper shaft acted like cams to raise and then allow the vertical shafts to drop. There are two arms on each cam which means each stamp could be dropped 120 times a minute. There are 10 stamps on the Lexington Mill, which is one of the smaller mills. The the new mill that replaced it had 40 stamps. At one time, there were 375 stamps in Butte. Can you imagine the racket!

 

The stamps worked best with gold and silver ore, not copper. As copper mining grew and gold and silver mining declined, the use of stamp mills decreased rapidly.

Copper ore continued to by hauled up out of the deep, hard-rock mines until the start of open pit mining with opening of the Berkley Pit in 1955. The Berkley Pit eventually became the largest truck-operated open pit mine in the world at about 1½ miles across and 1,780 feet deep. Open pit copper mining all but replaced deep mining because it is less expensive and safer than deep mining.

Anaconda Mining, owner of the Berkley Pit was bought out in 1977 by Atlantic Richfield Co. (ARCO). A few years later, ARCO began shutting down the pit due to low metal prices. When they ceased operation in 1982, they turned off the pumps in surrounding mines. The pit began filling with ground water that was highly acidic and laced with heavy metals like arsenic, cadmium, and zinc. These materials occur naturally in the ores in the area, and they are leached out by the acidic water. The photo below is a panoramic view of the eastern side of the Berkley Pit.

The water level in the pit is about 1,000 feet deep; but since the pit is so wide at the top, the rate at which it is becoming deeper is slowing. It is still well below the level at which there is a danger of reaching groundwater levels, and it is estimated the critical level will not be reached until 2020. Water entering the pit is currently being treated at a rate of over 3 million gallons a day, and the treatment plant will be upgraded in the future to enable it to treat more water to keep the water below the critical level. However, the pit will never be emptied. The Berkley Pit is one of the largest Superfund pollution cleanup sites. For more information on the Berkley Pit, go to www.pitwatch.org

We had a very interesting and educational visit to Butte. In our next post, we'll explore the neighboring copper town of Anaconda and tell you more about Marcus Daly.