Butte, nestled in Montana’s Rocky Mountains near the Continental Divide, has a beautiful natural setting as you can see in these photos.
The picture shown below was used in last weekend’s One Clue Mystery challenge. Congratulations to George G who recognized where we were. Excellent detective work as always, George!
Butte Hill, with its extensive copper deposits, was once known as “the richest hill on earth.” In its heyday Butte was the world’s second largest supplier of copper, second only to South Africa. During this time Butte was the largest city between Chicago and San Francisco.
Over the years the copper market softened and the mining all but disappeared. So did much of Butte. The history of the copper mining boom era lingers to this day and much of the historic town hasn’t changed significantly from its boom a century ago.
Today Butte is the fifth largest city in Montana. After decades of struggle the town seems to be sharing in the growth and prosperity the state has enjoyed, as people move to the area in search of the simpler nature-tied life Montana has to offer.
I’d visited Butte in the past but during my recent visit I wanted to explore its historic core more extensively, both by car and on foot. Included in this blog are some of the photos I took that day a few months back, including several of the 20 headframes in Butte that stand over mostly abandoned mines….
(about 20 headframes remain in Butte, most over abandoned mine shafts)
The city contains thousands of historic commercial and residential buildings from the boom times, especially in the Uptown section. Uptown Butte’s historic district was expanded in 2006 to include parts of nearby Anaconda and it is now the largest National Historic Landmark District in the United States, with nearly 6,000 properties.
There’s much to see and explore while in Butte. It’s worth a visit.
