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Survey of Historic Sites and Buildings

	BUTTE Montana
Location: Silver Bow County. Butte Chamber of Commerce

Ownership and Administration. Various.

Significance. Mining began in Butte in 1864, when miners from the Virginia City area found placer deposits of gold in Silver Bow Creek. By the end of the decade, however, a shortage of water was seriously hampering operations. In 1874 a new arrival, Marcus Daly, while prospecting for silver, found copper—a vein 50 feet wide and of unparalleled richness. Two years later the town of Butte was laid out. In 1881, when the first railroad, the Utah and Northern Railroad, reached the city and Daly formed the Anaconda Copper Company to develop his find, the great copper boom was underway. In 1883 Daly founded the city of Anaconda. By 1885 the population of Butte had reached 14,000. At the end of the century the city was the copper metropolis of the Americas. In addition to being the center of the famed wars between the copper kings—men such as Marcus Daly, William A. Clark, and Frederick A. Heinze—it was also the scene of violent struggles between labor and management.

Present Appearance. Butte, a melting pot of nationalities, is still a typical mining town, surrounded by enormous yellow and gray ore dumps and mine shafts. Its era of great mineral production has not yet ceased. Among the historic structures is the home of Senator W. A. Clark. The suburbs of Centerville, Walkerville, and Meaderville contain most of the mines and the homes of the miners—weathered frame structures clinging to steep hillsides and surrounded by sagging picket fences and grassless yards. The whole area is pockmarked by the surface workings and structures of one of the world's richest copper mines. [18]

NHL Designation: 07/04/61