PHOTO: COURTESY OF CHERYL ACKERMAN
mines. During the summer months, visitors can wander through the Anselmo Mine yard on South Excelsior Avenue at Caledonia Street (it’s the most intact of the twelve mine yards in existence in Butte) and see the railroad tracks running under the headframe where ore was loaded directly from containers called tipples into the cars of the Butte, Anaconda, and Pacific Railway for the twenty- five-mile trip to the giant smelter in Anaconda. Standing on nearby tracks is one of the early electric locomotives that replaced steam haulers early in World War I.
Located on Museum Way on the northwestern edge of town, the World Museum of Mining offers visitors an opportunity to putter around the hoisting works and the one hundred- foot-tall headframe of the Orphan Girl Mine. In the mine yard, visitors will find no fewer than sixty-six exhibits, including a giant smelter railroad car, a seventy-ton dump truck from the Berkeley Pit, and an early twentieth- century, steam-driven hoist engine. The museum also offers an under- ground mine tour that takes guests sixty-five feet underground through portions of the Orphan Girl Mine. Visitors interested in seeing what is left of Butte’s underground mines will also want to visit Butte Hill. Here, located less than a mile from town, amid a wasteland of waste rock from the mines and headframes, one will find the Granite Mountain Speculator Mine Memorial. The memorial’s beautiful, white stonework, which provides a sharp contrast to the multicolored waste rock all around the site, stands as a moving tribute to the scores of miners who were killed here in 1917. From the memorial, one can look down on the headframe of the ill- fated Granite Mountain Mine as well as the Speculator Mine and portions of the Berkeley Pit.
Also on Butte Hill, between the town and the Berkeley Pit, visitors will find the buildings of the Mountain Con Mine overlooking downtown. Here, where the surface works are at an elevation of 6,135 feet and the shafts go down 5,291 feet into the earth, there are two huge arrows, one
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u Once a dumping place for waste rock, the Mountain Con Mine area is being rejuvenated and will contain bike trails and picnic areas when it opens in 2011.
pointing up and the other down. Beside the arrows are the words “Mile High” and “Mile Deep.” Once a dumping place for waste rock gener- ated by mining efforts, this area is being rejuvenated and will contain bike trails, picnic areas, and native grasslands that will be open to the public starting in the spring of 2011. If you happen to be in Butte on July 3, when the town holds its Fourth of July fireworks display, this new park will be an ideal place from which to watch the celebration.
Touring the Town
Having taken a look at the various mine sites, visitors to Butte can get a different perspective on the town by taking a tour of the historic Uptown district. A tour book offering a self- guided look at the area is available at the World Museum of Mining for $5.00 and offers a good introduction to less obvious facets of Butte. The tour is intended to be a walking tour and requires going up and down some slopes, but in a pinch it could be done mostly by car.
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