Butte Montana

Butte and Silver Bow County, Montana 59701! Proof of Butte’s history is apparent, from the head frames over old mine shafts to the last of the old stamp mills AND the Berkeley Pit. A lot of this legacy is readily accessible around the town and this is why history buffs find Butte fun to visit. Butte is on Interstate 90 between Billings and Missoula.

Butte Montana city web site.

The delight you can have in Butte Silver Bow County is inexhaustible - museums, hiking, riding, snowmobiling, cross country skiing, fishing, hunting, pack trips, golfing, and photography at their very best. Ours is a magical land of "The Berkeley Pit", “Our Lady of the Rockies”, gleaming mountaintops and abundant wildlife!

Butte is nestled in a small valley just west of the Continental Divide. Like many mining camps, Butte came into existence because of gold and by 1870 placer mining, the easiest method of gold extraction was petering out. The majority of the miners left for other gold strikes but a few folks labored on in Butte. Throughout the 1870s it was silver mining kept Butte alive. Around 1880 Butte miners struck the richest deposit of copper ever found and then improved smelting techniques made it profitable to extract the copper and other metals.

At the same time the electricity industry was starting up and millions of miles of wire was needed. Copper was the material of choice. Butte quickly boomed into a the largest town in Montana with theatres, plush hotels and many fine restaurants.

Wealthy copper barons abounded in Butte and the labor unions were started to deal with them. There were more than two hundred mines in the Butte area at one time and they worked 24 hours a day. So, the silver bow mining camp became Montana’s metropolitan center of industry, culture. In the early 1900s Butte’s population, a mishmash of Irish, Finns, Italians, Cornish, Welsh, Serbs, Chinese and others, grew to more than 100,000 people.

By the 1980s that had all gone away and instead Butte now claims the dubious distinction of being home to the Berkeley Pit and being part of the largest Superfund site in the United States. As of the census of 2000, there are 33,892 people, 14,135 households, and 8,735 families residing in Butte. There are 15,833 housing units at an average density of 8.5/km² (22.1/mi²). The racial makeup of Butte is 95% White, 0.2% African American, 2% Native American, 0.4% Asian, 0.06% Pacific Islander, 0.6% from other races, and 1% from two or more races. 3% of the population are Hispanic or Latino of any race. Irish-Americans constitute one of the largest ethnic groups in Butte, which is reflected in the Butte Irish ice hockey team and St. Patrick's Day parade.