Butte, Montana

I woke around 7:00 a.m., took a shower, and had a breakfast of granola, yogurt, bananas,and milk. Since my plans to leave Butte were pushed to Thursday and I have everything taken care of for my departure, I decided to do some sightseeing. I called the visitor's bureau about the trolley tours and the museum of mining. I settled on the trolley since it would give me an overview of Butte and its history, including mining.

The lady at the counter who was processing my credit card asked if my heritage was Italian and I said yes. I asked if there were many Italian-Americans in Butte. She said yes, quite a few. She said there is the Swiss-Italian and the Italian section of town; she said the Swiss-Italians are Italians on skiis. I laughed!

I was checking out the visitor center and noticed a poster with a photo of what looked like a sheep dog with matted hair. He was named Auditor by the miners because he would always show up when least expected. He lived in the barren wasteland of the strip mining area for 17 years, from 1986 to 2003. He was a wild dog and would not let the miners near him, but they built a shed with some rags as a bed and would leave him food. He so inspired the town that they now have a 300 lb. bronze statue of Auditor to honor his life which embodied toughness, resilience and independence, not unlike the miners.

Editor's note: You can read about Auditor and find more unique sights at towns throughout the country at this useful website, Roadside America: http://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/12137

The tour was mostly focused on mining since it was such a big part of the history of Butte. One of the main stops was the Berkeley Pit, which is an inactive strip mine. There was a time when the price of copper was so low, all of the mines were shut down and a decision was made to turn off the water pumps - so the pit has been filling ever since and now has billions of gallons of contaminated water in it. It is so toxic that the mine uses various techniques to keep birds away, such as bird distress calls and raptor calls. This efffort was in response to a tragic event that happened 15 years ago when 350 snow geese landed in the lake in the pit, never to leave again.

The main pit in operation now is the Continental Pit, which has a lower grade ore than at the Berkeley Pit. It is the opinion of the tour operator that it was a mistake to turn off the pumps because if there wasn't billions of gallons of water in the Berkeley Pit, it could be mined right now. The cost to remove the water now would be prohibitive because they would have to treat all that water prior to releasing it back to the suface streams. It was likely a case of "penny-wise and dollar-foolish."

He told us about the "copper kings," who were three individuals who started buying up the individual mines. The most wealthy and famous of the three was William Clark who had two mansions in town (one of which that he gave to his son), one in New York City and one in France. Amongst other accomplishments, he is credited with founding Las Vegas.

Editor's note: William Clark's youngest daughter, Huguette Clark, was the subject of controversy toward the end of her life, which is detailed in the best-selling book, Empty Mansions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huguette_Clark

Intially before strip or pit mining there was the traditional tunnel mining. All over town you can see the headframes used in tunnel mining. There were structures used to lower and raise men and ore into the tunnels. Initially, men used to push carts of ore from their place of work, called a station, to the ore elevator. Eventually, these tunnels became too long for the men to push the carts, so they incorporated mules to do the work. 

Editor's note: Sad animal story in this paragraph. Mules were quite a bit larger than the elevators, so they used to put them in a straight jacket to pull their legs together and, once in this rounded position, roll them onto the elevator. The mules would live and die in the mines. They were well cared for, but unlike the men who would come up and into the light of day at the end of their shift, the mules did not. The mules were phased out when the ore carts were electrified.

Over 2000 men were recorded as dying in the mines since records were kept. Our tour guide's dad died when he was 4 years old and the Italian-American clerk's dad died when she was 10. The tour operator had no knowledge of a record of mule deaths.

Unions formed largely for worker safety and for a reduced work day and, of course, improved pay. 1n 1914, the union workers went on strike and since it affected the non-union workers, they were disgruntled and blew up the union hall. The governor of Montana declared martial law in Butte, which remained in effect until 1921.

Butte, like many mining towns, was considered a tough town and associated with that toughness was crime and prostitution. A number of brothels operated until as long as 1982, when they were shut down. A former brothel called is now the Dumas Brothel Museum (I did not go inside the museum).

When I came back from the tour, I organized and packed my boxes and went out for a walk along the bike trail. There were some workers with septic system-type trucks on the bike path with flexible pipes extending into the Blacktail Creek. I asked what they were doing, and he said they have a semi-permeable pipe under the creek that collects heavy metals from the creek that come from the mining tailings. They were pumping out that water in order to treat it. Butte is part of a huge superfund site. I said, "I guess this will be going on for a long time" and he said, "l hope so, I am not retired yet."

I went out to the Safeway to get some dinner. I bought fried chicken and cole slaw. After dinner, I read a bit of the 1st book of the Lord of the Rings.