Butte, MT

©2013 text and photos by LeeZard

Tuesday July 16

I’ve been awakening early every morning – usually 6am – eager to begin each day. This morning, as I open my tent flap, I am in awe; a herd of about 30-40 elk is racing across the field right in front of me. I am transfixed. They move too fast and disappear into the woods before I get my hands on my camera. The image is burned into my memory; they are elegant and awesome.

I must roust myself from nature's glory, however, and get my ass to work. I drive down from my 7,000 foot mountain aerie and head to town.

Butte is a small but proud city. Population in 2012 was 33,720. Its past and present is mining. At one time this was called "The Richest Hill on Earth." 

The city was born in 1864 when prospectors discovered gold in Silver Bow Creek. By 1870 the placer claims petered out and so did the population, dropping from 500 to 150.

The second boom, and the one that cemented the city’s future, came in 1875 when rich silver deposits and then copper were discovered. The famous Anaconda Copper Mining Company opened for business in 1880 and would soon build the world’s largest smelter. Butte was Anaconda’s company town until the company ceased to exist 96-years later. All the underground mines ceased operations in the mid-1970s and more than 3,000 miners lost their jobs.

Old Anaconda Mining Pit

Today one company, Montana Resources, mines copper in Butte, employing about 400 workers to extract and process the mineral from the huge open pit left by Anaconda.  Still, Butte produces more than eight percent of the nation’s copper.

Needless to say, Butte and environs suffered severe environmental damage from the years of mining. Surprisingly (to me, anyway), ARCO, which purchased and closed Anaconda in the 1970s, has spent more than $400 million on reclamation work to repair damage in the area by capping mine tailings with clean dirt, landscaping and re-vegetating damaged land. In 2004 ARCO agreed to contribute an additional $50 million to the Montana Superfund in efforts to clean up the Clark Fork Basin.

Curtis Music Hall - 1892

Historic downtown Butte reflects the city’s heritage with many of the original red brick buildings from the late 19^th Century still standing. Many of them are undergoing renovation. Street names like Copper, Gold, Mercury, Silver and Platinum are constant reminders of the past. The former headquarters of the now defunct Iron Savings and Loan Bank is still Butte’s tallest building at ten floors.

But, what would I find post-recession 2013? In fact, it was what I didn’t find that is the surprising story.

Downtown was very quiet this sunny and cool Tuesday morning so I headed into some neighborhoods looking for interviews. My first stop was an Albertson’s Grocery Store. The seven or eight people with whom I spoke all had the same thing to say; the recession had little or no affect on them. “That’s odd,” I thought.

I wanted to see the old Anaconda mining pit and the existing Montana Resources operation. What can I say? The open pit is gargantuan and ugly. Across the four-lane street from the pit is a small, mostly rundown neighborhood of tiny single-family homes and small trailer parks. Prime interview territory was my immediate thought, disgruntled mineworkers. Oh boy! I was wrong.

Hotel/Bawdy House?

I walked the neighborhood for about an hour and spoke to five or six people watering their lawns and tending gardens. None had any connection to the mine and, they told me, neither did their neighbors. More surprising, they all said the recession virtually passed them by. “I was poor before the recession,” one woman told me, “and I’m still poor. The good news is I ain’t much poorer.” Now I was feeling frustrated, “What the hell’s going on here.”

My frustration was short-lived, however, as I quickly realized this was the story. Did the recession really miss this small city? Time to talk to “official” Butte.

The Butte-Silver Bow government is combined for the city and the county. There is an elected executive, no mayor. Executive Matt Vincent was tied up in daylong meetings so I looked for another elected official who might have insight.

Community Development Director Karen Byrnes was kind enough to quickly return my call and even more kind to invite me to her office for an interview. “I am underdressed,” I deferred.

“I would be doing a disservice to a public official to appear in your office in my grubby on-the-road duds, let’s just talk on the phone.”

Owsley Block - 1886

I was about to give Ms Byrnes my standard “Please, no chamber of commerce answers” request but, as I listened to her, I heard the ring of truth in her remarks.

“We were fortunate, the recession did have little affect,” she said. “The early mining booms brought a hearty and diverse group of people here and they stayed. And, their descendants stayed. They are hardworking, industrious and never give up.  As a result, when the Anaconda Mine closed, instead of rolling over and dying in self-pity we went right back to work and began diversifying.”

While mining is still a big piece of Butte’s economic picture, the city now also depends on several other economic drivers, like tourism for example. The many renovation projects in historic downtown is one example of the city's efforts to boost the industry.

Transportation is another factor. Butte is a major inland port from which imported cargo is shipped via rail and motor carrier to points throughout the Midwest. Butte is located at Montana’s only rail interline of the Union Pacific and Burlington Northern railroads. Piggyback service is provided, and trains run up to twelve times weekly from here. Several motor freight carriers regularly transport goods through facilities in Butte, with overnight and second-day delivery to major cities in the West and Midwest.

Other major employers like universities, hospitals and the state electric utility (3,000 local employees!) protected Butte during the recession.

So, if you want to live in the Montana mountains with broad strokes of the old west, try Butte where the median house price is $122,000 and unemployment hovers around five percent.

Wait; did I just give a chamber of commerce answer?