Qualla: Butte

Butte: Introduction

Sat, 10 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Acroterion, CC BY-SA 4.0. The sign on the northern approach from Interstate 15 tells you everything you need to know about Butte: 'The greatest mining camp on earth, built on the richest hill in the world.' That hill has produced over two billion dollars worth of gold, silver, copper, and zinc. Beneath the city run over 3,000 miles of tunnels and shafts reaching depths of 4,000 feet. And in the middle of town sits the Berkeley Pit - 1,700 feet deep, filling slowly with toxic runoff, a Superfund site that has become, improbably, a tourist attraction. Butte was once Montana's largest city, a rootin', tootin' boomtown that drew workers from around the world. Today it drinks its liquor straight and remembers.

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Image: Acroterion | CC BY-SA 4.0

Butte: The Richest Hill

Sat, 10 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit B D, CC BY 2.0. Gold brought the first miners in 1864, during the placer rush that swept through Montana. But Butte's true wealth lay deeper - silver first, then copper as electricity created unprecedented demand for wire. The Anaconda Copper Mining Company became one of the world's largest corp...

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Image: B D | CC BY 2.0

Butte: The Pit

Sat, 10 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. The Berkeley Pit opened in 1955, an open-pit copper mine that eventually consumed entire neighborhoods as it expanded. Mining ceased in 1982, and the pumps that had kept groundwater from flooding the tunnels shut off. Water began to fill the pit - not clean water, but acidic runo...

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Image: Public domain

Butte: Mining Heritage

Sat, 10 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit AllAroundTheWest, CC BY 2.5. Butte's Irish heritage persists in its cuisine - particularly the pasty, a meat and vegetable pie enclosed in crimped pastry that Cornish and Irish miners carried into the tunnels. The crimped edge served as a handle, allowing workers to eat with dirty hands and discard the crust...

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Image: AllAroundTheWest | CC BY 2.5

Butte: A Town That Remembers

Sat, 10 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit simpleinsomnia, CC BY 2.0. Butte has dwindled from its peak but refuses to forget what it was. The uptown district preserves late 19th-century architecture, much of it built during the copper boom. The St. Patrick's Day parade draws crowds that rival cities many times Butte's size. The stories told in bars...

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Image: simpleinsomnia | CC BY 2.0