PHOTO: ©JAN BUTCHOFSKY/CORBIS
With architecturally diverse buildings ranging from humble miners’ cottages to beautifully crafted mansions, Butte’s architecture chronicles the city’s rich history.
history, it was the largest truck- operated open-pit copper mine in America. For nearly thirty years, mammoth trucks drove in and out of the mine carrying ore, waste rock containing low levels of minerals, and the overlying barren rock. As the pit grew in size, the waste materials taken from the mine had to be dumped farther and farther away from the pit, leaving behind the massive, colorful piles of dirt and rock still visible today. Nearby, the Continental Pit, which was reopened in 2003, uses the same mining process once used in the Berkeley Pit to mine copper and molybdenum. Visitors interested in seeing the
remains of Butte’s underground mines will have a lot to look at as well. Fourteen remaining headframes add to the town’s attraction, although in some cases, only the headframes themselves still exist. At other locations, though, visitors will also find powerhouses and other buildings once integral to the operation of the
diversity that is the legacy of the city’s poor and rich alike. Butte’s wealthier citizens of days gone by are repre- sented by the city’s ornate, beautifully crafted buildings, while the legacy of the miners is found in the modest houses known as miners’ cottages, churches the names of which proclaim the ethnicity of their worshipers, and the neighborhoods that once segre- gated Cornishmen from Irishmen, Finns from Chinese people, and Eastern Europeans from everyone else. There is plenty of evidence that the city has not fared well for some time—you’ll pass homes in need of paint, buildings in need of repair, and vacant lots—but the wonderful architectural diversity of the city quickly draws one away from the signs of decay.
Touring the Mines
For those interested in western history, Butte’s mines will probably be a primary attraction. The Berkeley Pit, which is located on the northeast- ern edge of town, covers 675 acres, is 1,780 feet deep, and contains billions of gallons of contaminated water. At one time during its operational
T H E E L K S M A G A Z I N E 45
Fourteen headframes, like this one at the Anselmo Mine, dot the landscape around
dot the landscape around Butte, reminders of the
intense underground activity that once took place here.
PHOTO: GEORGE OSTERTAG/SUPERSTOCK/PHOTOLIBRARY
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