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Top Attractions in Butte

Copper King Mansion

The Copper King Mansion, also known as the W. A. Clark Mansion, is a 34-room residence of Romanesque Revival Victorian architecture that was built from 1884 to 1888 as the Butte, Montana residence of William Andrews Clark, one of Montanas three famous Copper Kings. The home features fresco painted ceilings, elegant parquets of rare imported wood, gas and electric chandeliers, ornate hand-carved fireplaces and stairways and stained-glass windows. The mansion was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1970. The Copper King Mansion has been privately owned, operated, and occupied by the Cote family since 1953. The home is currently operated as a Bed and Breakfast, with rooms ranging in price from $105 to $200. The website is thecopperkingmansion.com. Guided tours are available during the summer tourist season, or by appointment during the winter months. The Copper King Mansion is referenced in the book about Clarks daughter, Huguette, Empty Mansions by Bill Dedman and Paul Clark Newell, Jr.

Berkeley Pit

The Berkeley Pit is a former open pit copper mine located in Butte, Montana, United States. It is one mile long by half a mile wide with an approximate depth of 1,780 feet . It is filled to a depth of about 900 feet with water that is heavily acidic, about the acidity of cola or lemon juice. As a result, the pit is laden with heavy metals and dangerous chemicals that leach from the rock, including copper, arsenic, cadmium, zinc, and sulfuric acid. The mine was opened in 1955 and operated by Anaconda Copper and later by the Atlantic Richfield Company, until its closure in 1982. When the pit was closed, the water pumps in the nearby Kelley Mine, 3,800 feet below the surface, were turned off, and groundwater from the surrounding aquifers began to slowly fill the pit, rising at about the rate of one foot a month. Since the pit closure on Earth Day 1982, the level has risen to within 150 feet of the natural groundwater level. The pit and its water present a serious environmental problem because the water, with dissolved oxygen, allows pyrite and sulfide minerals in the ore and wall rocks to decay, releasing acid. When the pit water level eventually reaches the natural water table, estimated to occur by around 2020, the pit water will reverse flow back into surrounding groundwater, polluting into Silver Bow Creek which is the headwaters of Clark Fork River. The acidic water in the pit carries a heavy load of dissolved heavy metals. In fact, the water contains so much dissolved metal that some material is mined directly from the water. In the 1990s plans were devised for solving the groundwater problem. Water flowing into the pit has been diverted to slow the rise of the water level. Plans have been made for more extensive treatment in the future. The Berkeley Pit has since become one of the largest Superfund sites. The pit is currently a tourist attraction, with an adjacent gift shop. A $2 admission fee is charged to go out on the viewing platform.

Elk Park Pass

Elk Park Pass, elevation 6,352 ft , is a mountain pass on the Continental Divide in southwestern Montana, about 4 miles northeast of Butte. It is traversed by Interstate 15 and is one of three crossings of the Divide by the Interstate , the others being Monida Pass (on the border with Idaho) and Deer Lodge Pass southwest of Butte. Elk Park Pass lies on the border between Silver Bow and Jefferson counties and is remarkable for its highly asymmetrical nature. The approach from the north is through namesake Elk Park, a high, mostly treeless plain (like South Park in Colorado or the Sierra Valley in California), and the grade is almost imperceptible: The elevation at the northeast end of the park, about 10 miles (16 km) from the pass, is about 6,200 ft (1,900 m), only 152 ft (46 m) lower than the pass itself. However, at the south end, the highway drops 750 ft (230 m) from the pass into Butte over a distance of only about 4 miles . At one time Elk Park Pass was also traversed by a railroad line, constructed by the Great Northern Railway and later operated by its successor, Burlington Northern. However, this line was abandoned in 1972.

Montana Tech of the University of Montana

Montana Tech is a public university located in Butte, Montana. Originally founded in 1900 as the Montana State School of Mines, the institution’s funding and land came from the Enabling Act of 1889, which admitted Montana to the Union and allocated 100,000 acres of public land to establish a state school of mines. The School of Mines opened its doors with only one building, Main Hall, holding 21 students. The School of Mines offered only two degrees: mining engineering and electrical engineering. Today, Montana Tech has nearly 3,000 students, 13 campus buildings and offers 73 undergraduate degrees along with 18 minors, 14 certification degrees, and 10 pre-professional career programs. Montana Tech also offers 21 graduate degrees and a Ph.D. in Materials Science.

Deer Lodge Pass

Deer Lodge Pass, elevation 5,879 ft , is a mountain pass on the Continental Divide in southwestern Montana, about 11 miles southwest of Butte. It is traversed by Interstate 15 and is one of three crossings of the Divide by I-15 , the others being Monida Pass (on the border with Idaho) and Elk Park Pass north of Butte. Unlike most other passes in western Montana, Deer Lodge Pass is in the midst of treeless, rolling hills (reminiscent of Interstate 80 in Wyoming), and the grades on the highway are relatively gentle. About 0.7 miles (1.1 km) west of the highway crossing is a slightly lower pass, elevation 5,801 ft (1,768 m), that carries a branch line of the Union Pacific Railroad across the Divide. This is sometimes also referred to as Deer Lodge Pass, but the official railroad name for this location is Feely. The railroad line connects Silver Bow, Montana with Idaho Falls, Idaho and is a remnant of the Utah and Northern Railway, completed over the pass in 1881 and converted to standard gauge five years later.

Anaconda Copper Mine

The Anaconda Copper Mine was a large copper mine in Butte, Montana. It was bought in 1881 by Marcus Daly from Michael Hickey. Hickey was a prospector and Union Civil War veteran. He named his claim the Anaconda Mine after reading Horace Greeleys Civil War account of how Ulysses S. Grants forces had surrounded Robert E. Lees forces "like an anaconda". Daly developed the Anaconda Mine and smelter operation in partnership with George Hearst, father of William Randolph Hearst, and James Ben Ali Haggin and Lloyd Tevis of San Francisco. From this beginning he developed the Anaconda Copper Mining Company, a global mining enterprise featuring the Anaconda and other Butte mines, a smelter at Anaconda, Montana, processing plants in Great Falls, Montana, the American Brass Company, and many other properties, mostly in the United States, with the largest copper mine in the world in Chile and another in Mexico. The Anaconda Copper Mining Company was acquired by ARCO in 1977. The Anaconda mine was closed in 1947 after producing 94,900 tons of copper. Its location has been consumed by the Berkeley Pit, a vast open-pit mine that used a different technology to adapt to changing grades of copper ore. F. Augustus Heinze used an apex lawsuit to lay claim to ore from the Anaconda Mines. Heinze purchased a small parcel of unclaimed land on top of Butte Hill. In actions upheld by several Butte judges, he was able to take copper ore that was in the Anaconda companys shafts. After years of losing lawsuits to Heinze, the company shut down all operations in the state. They put nearly 80% of the state workforce out of work in order to force the state legislature to adopt a "change of venue" provision for lawsuits. Eventually the company bought out all of Heinzes properties and claims.

Venus Alley

Venus Alley was a famous red-light district once located in Butte, Montana in the United States. It flourished from the late 19th century through the early 20th century and was one of the last openly tolerated urban prostitution districts in the American West, along with the one in Reno, Nevada. It was closed in the 1970s. Venus Alley rose in the 1880s during the heyday of Butte as a wide-open copper-mining town, full of hundreds of saloons and gambling halls. The block-long district was located in the center of town off Wyoming Street. The name "Venus Alley" came from the rear entrance of the famous Dumas Brothel, one of the longest running houses of prostitution in the U.S. The brick-lined alley was lined with "cribs", overhung with a single white light bulb over each entrance. The north side of the alley was lined with the famous "double-deckers", where the alley-level cribs were surmounted by a wooden planks and a second row of cribs. The women who worked the cribs typically wore brightly colored and short-skirted dresses. The cribs were equipped with call boxes for ordering drinks or food from nearby bars and noodle parlors. The structure of the Dumas Brothel, as well as the brick-lined alley, still stands in uptown Butte and has become a tourist attraction.
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