Thursday, July 2, 2009

Not Butte but Anaconda






I made an error...amazing I know, but I realized we are 12miles from Butte, Montana in Fairmont RV park in Anaconda, Montana.
We drove into Butte this morning. Butte-Anaconda-Walkerville is one of the largest National Historic Landmark Districts in the country, having national significance for its mining and labor history. (Since we were here last year I will try to cover different highlights). Gold drew people here and silver encouraged them, but copper made them rich.
The mineral wealth total value was $162 billion.
The third largest city to be electrified.
Second largest red light district in the west.
Produced a third of all the world's copper in 1905-1917
They call this place the Gibraltar of Unionism and a hot bed of Socialism and Communism that was put down by Capt. Omar Bradley (1918)
Mining headframes, that you will see in the pictures,dot the Butte hill. These are relics of underground mining guided the hoists that lowered men, mules, and ore as much as one mile beneath the surface.
We decided to do a walking tour of part of the city today on our own and do a guided underground city tour tomorrow.

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