The Discovery of gold on Butte Hill was made in July 1864 by G.O. Humphrey and William Allison. 100s flocked to the area on the hearing of the news of the discovery, a camp arose, one where a man wasn't safe without a bowie knife or a revolver and saloons were the pride of the trade. 
  
         But all good things must come to an end and the placers gradually worked their way out and by 1874, the population of the camp dwindle to a handful. 

         But there was one metal that would make Butte strong, that metal being copper. The ore was discovered in great amounts in the Butte Hills and its discovery would result in the greatest mining camp on earth. This metal would create kings, Copper Kings.  
 
                                        WAR OF THE COPPER KINGS 

 Marcus Daly, bright, ambitious,young Irish immigrant, was brought in from Nevada to Butte as manager of the Alice Silver mine. Daly was on the lookout for new ventures.  He became a partner of Michael Hickey(an ex solider of the union army and whose property which was discovered in 1882 named The Anaconda after an editorial by Horace Greely in the New York Tribune and which would become the name of the sole owner of the mines, The Anaconda Copper Mining Company, in later years) and pushed  development work. Soon he and other backers bought Hickey's share in the Anaconda. 
    At the three hundred foot level, good luck in the guise of tragedy struck Daly.  Instead of silver, he found ore predominatly copper.  Daly's backers were disappointed.  In the time of the discovery, gold and silver were the metals considered anything worth a gamble.  Also, the camp had no facilities for treating the copper ore and no one knew if the body was large enough to warrant an investment in equipment  for smelting copper. 

   Daly himself was optimistic.  The mining engineers were skeptical, but the unschooled Irishman proved them all wrong.  Neigboring properties were bought up, thousands of men probed their way through the earth to ore bearing veins, including copper as well as gold and silver.  The surface of the hill became scarred by the waste dumps, piles of black slag and gray green tailings.   

    Practically overnight, Butte mushroomed. Fortunes were made and spent in a day. Armies of miners moved into the camp. Day and night shifts were employed and smelters were erected to belch forth of greenish, stifling smoke. 
    
 William A. Clark's start was equally modest as Daly.  His foundation for his fortune was with money he had earned as wages. Once possessing enough capital to invest in a small stock of merchandise, he opened a frontier store in Bannack, Montana. Later he became a small banker in the little nearby mining camp of Deer Lodge. Finally he entered both the banking and mining business in "Butte City".  At the time of Daly's arrival in Butte, Clark was already a leading business man well on his to making a fortune. It was Clark that Daly carried his introduction from The Walker Brothers(Daly was an agent for the banking firm in Salt Lake City). By 1885,Clark was part owner in no less than fourty six paying silver or copper properties in or around Butte.  

    Following Daly's first visit with Clark, the two became close personal friends. Both men were loyal democrats. Clark as he grew more and more wealthier became more and more politically inclined whereas Daly, because of his lack of education, felt he had no qualifications for the political arena. Politics bothered Daly only if they might effect his private interest. 

    The first break between the two friends is believed to have occured when it had gotten back to Daly that Clark made slighting remarks about Daly, ridiculing his uncouthness and refering to his discovery of the Anaconda as "Dumb luck".  Open enmity resulted after the defeat of Clark as a candidate for congress. Clark claimed that his defeat was caused by the treachery of Daly. 
 
    A year later, in 1889, Montana was admitted to the union and Clark repaid Daly by throwing his entire resources into defeating Daly's pet project into making Anaconda(a city about 26 miles from Butte) the capital of the state.  In the Helena versus Anaconda fight for the state capital location, the battle was in the open. No punches were pulled. It was said that money flowed like water in the initial skirmishes while bribery and vote buying was rampant. It was said that more champagne and fifty cent cigars were handed out to the voters than were probably sold in all of the Rocky Mountain states at the time. 

   The two battled it out through the media as well. Clark bought the Butte Miner which he built up by adding high priced editorial staff and used this paper as a sharp weapon in a constant bitter attacks against Daly.  Daly retaliated by erecting an entire newspaper plant in Anaconda. He imported Dr. John H. Durston, a noted editor of the time, from the Syracuse Standard who named the new paper The Anaconda Standard.  Daly is said to have spent $500,000 on the Standard to make it an effective competitor against Clark's Miner.  The Standard had a circulation of twenty thousand in Butte alone. But in the end, Daly and his henchman lost the vote and Helena was selected to be capital.  Daly is said to have spent $2,500,000 in the fight and Clark $400,000. 

    With the site of the capital decided in Clark's favor, Daly was beaten for the moment. Clark, filled with success, announced his decision to once again run for U.S. senate. Daly as firmly announced that he would fight such aspirations with every weapon at his command.  Round three was on and the money and champagne flowed, if not rained, harder than during the state capital fight.  The legislature and state senate were political plums as earnestly sought as was the governorship. It was the legislators who named the U.S. senators at that time. 

    During the campaign, the money of the voters was not acceptable in most saloons of Butte as both Daly and Clark had standing orders in scores of establishments that all drinks were on them and those drinks were not limited to just beer for the voter. There was no middle ground, they were either on Daly's side or they were for Clark. 

    November 8th, 1898, was election day. The vote in Butte and Silver Bow county was close, but late that evening as the returns trickled in, the Daly democratic legislative ticket was leading with a slight lead over Clark-Republican slate and the Dublin Gulch precinct, a conceded Daly stronghold, was yet to be heard from. At about 4:30 the following morning, judges of the precinct were finishing the count by dim ligh of miner's candles when suddenly, the door flew open and two armed masked men entered. They ordered the antonished judges and clerks to "reach for the ceiling!" But the thugs had underestimated the loyalty gotten by the Copper king's gold, the two men were thwarted in their attempt in a skirmish that left one election clerk dead and a checker injured. The two men disappeared into the darkness and were never identified or captured. In the ballot  boxes were 302 votes for Daly and only 17 for Clark. 

    Daly feeling sure of himself, and underestimating Clark's resolve, went east for the winter to New York city. Clark had other plans. Seeing how the voters did not vote in his supporters into the legislature, he would bribe his way into the senate.  Members of the Legislature were bought like a housewive would buy eggs, by the dozen. Those who attempted to withstand tempation, suddenly found large sums of money in inconceivable spots such as under their pillows. Laundry would come back from the cleaners with large sums of money stuffed in the pockets.  Many found themselves recieving exorbiant sums of money for real estate  that was out of the way or for run down or worked out mines, mills or places of business. There were a few legislators who fought back, who didn't take the bribes but the balloting started.  It continued for 18 days before a majority could be reached.  When the final roll call was announced, it was 54 for Clark, a clear majority.  It was reported that 47  votes were bought during those 18 days at a total cost of $431,000. An additional $200,000 that had been offered to 13 other state senators had been refused. 

    Daly's camp made sure that the news of the corruption reached Washington. The U.S. Senate ordered an investigation into the charges.  It was said that the list of bribe takers read like a Who's who of Montana. Clark, to save himself from further  humilation, resigned his seat as senator. 

When the next campaign appeared in 1899, Clark again tossed his hat into the senatorial ring. By this time, his rival had consolidated mining interests with the Standard Oil Company under the name of Amalgamated Mining Corporation. F. Augustus Heinze had already made his spectacular enterance into the Butte field and was dealing out annoyances to the newly formed corporation. This time, it was Heinze whom Clark wanted as a partner and Heinze was agreeable. 

    Heinze was desperately trying to elect "safe" district judges to make his raid on the Amalgamated secure in the courts and Clark again wanted to pick a legislature that would assure his election to the U.S. Senate.  Daly was ill in New York and was in no condition to offer the vigirious and expensive fight he had shown in the past wars. Clark got the backing of the labor simply by establishing the eight hour day in all of their mines and smelters.  The Amalgamated, although their employees outnumbered the Clark-Heinze force ten to one, shortsighedly refused to change to the 8 hour shift. 

    With Clark's money and Heinze's showmanship and a bit of trickery, the Amalgamated forces were snowed under. Heinze elected his judges and Clark elected his legislatures which this time quickly elected him to the long sought after seat of senator. Soon after the election of 1900, Marcus Daly died at the age 58. He did not live to see Clark take his seat, which he served the full 6 years of his term. 

    The Election of 1899 was not the first Butte had seen of F.A. Heinze and it was not the last. He had arrived in 1891, a young man of twenty, just out of college.  His first job was in a subordinate position in the engineering staff of Boston and Montana Consolidated Copper and Silver mining company, then the most formidable rival of The Amalgamated Corporation in the camp. Heinze, an enterprising man, used his position to acquire a thorough knowledge of underground conditions on the hill. 

    He made both friends and money rapidly and used them in the accomplishment of his purposes.  The knowledge he acquired at Boston and Montana Company made him a valuable ally of Daly in several unimportant earlier conflicts. But as was stated before, he broke up with Daly and moved over to Clark's camp. 

    Ever the promoter, in the lull following the Clark-Daly set to, Heinze travelled to the easter money marts, where his persuasive manner and inside information won him financial backing from Wall Street. This capital was immediately put into building a smelter for the alleged purpose of reducing  the ore of the independent Butte mining operators who had no smelter of their own. A company was formed under the name of Montana Ore Purchasing Company. His first mine, The Glengarry, leased from Jim Murray, earned him $500,000 Next he leased, then bought outright, the Rarus Mine. This, he explained, was to assure to keeping his smelter running to full capacity.   It was the Rarus Mine which would become part of the litigation with Amalgamated. Heinze soon had several mines in scattered locations near proven Anaconda or Clark properties. And too, he had a certain Judge Clancy to make his transgressions legal, or at least during the precious time until the Supreme Court, months later, would usually reverse the decision.  Clancy had come to Butte from Missouri.It was to Daly that he owed his judgeship, an act Daly would regret later on. For 8 years, Clancy kept  local courtrooms in an uproar as time after time, his decisions favored F.A. Heinze.  In the 8 years, court records record show no adverse ruling from Clancy against Heinze. 

    Judge Clancy had occupied the district court bench about 18 months when Marcus Daly's plan for the organization of the Amalgamated Copper Company were perfected through The Standard Oil group. Their first act was to enter legal proceedings against Heinze. There were only two district judges in the camp, Clancy and John Lindsay, a judge of unquestioned integrity. No matter what, Heinze's cases always came under the hearing of Clancy. 

    After the death of Daly, Heinze filled his ranks with ambitious politicians, both in and out of Butte. Turned down by the Clark's force after his aid in electing Clark to senate, he then declared war on the combined Amalgamated and Clark organizations along with others foolhardy enough to join with his enemies. He roused the voters against the "dangers of foreign combines and monolopies" Heinze was a politician of ability. He made flattering promises and shrewdly kept them to the miners as when he reduce the hours of labor from ten to eight. After the election, Amalgamated followed suit but it was Heinze that the miners credited for the reduction. He raised and reraised the camp's scale of wages. The miner's considered him no less a god and voted for whomever was listed in the Heinze column on the ballot. 

    Heinze fought Amalgamated with their own money for years. High grade ore from Amalgamated, purloined from under their very noses, was hoisted through Heinze's mine shafts and smelted in his Meaderville smelter. Judge Clancy approved the legality of the act. 
 
    A master of strategy, time and time again, Heinze proceeded to beat Amalgamated at its own game. Money rolled into his coffer and then was paid out again through the hands of his many campaign managers. The elections were but mere formalities. Without great effort, he secured control of the city and county governments as well as judges of the district courts. He won the miners over with full pails coming and going to work, to with food and from with beer.  Clark had made a tradition of giving a turkey to his workers for Christmas, Heinze gave a turkey on both Thanksgiving and Christmas. Housewives were presented with bottles of wine each month. It was no wonder why Heinze ran away with most elections. 

    Underground, Heinze moved into enemy terrority. Amalgamated fought him off with every concievable weapons at hand trying to stop him from taking their entire mines.  Through his Rarus mine, Heinze moved into the Michael Davitt, an adjoining Amalgamated property which he claimed "Apexed" on the Rarus. Here was discovered an imense body of ore that Amalgamated engineers did not know even existed. Before being stopped, Heinze succeeded in taking out a hundred thousand tons of forty percent copper ore. Then, dynamite was set off, caving the property for several hundred feet and completly obliterating all evidence. Heinze had a pick for finding the bodies of ore and he repeated this at Minnie Healey and other properties. Heinze took the ore and Judge Clancy took the matter under advisment delaying matters sufficiently to allow Heinze to gut the places of its riches. 

      Dynamite, guns, pick axes were used in underground battles between the two company's miners. It became an all out war.  Finally, on February 13th, a defeated and drained Amalgamated handed Heinze a certified check for $10,500,000 to give up his properties and leave Butte forever. He took the money and went east, richer than either Daly or Clark every dream at his age. Despite his agreement, with 20 million dollars he organized The United Copper Company as opposition to Amalgamated, bought control of Mercantile National Bank from George Gould for six million and entered into an alliance with Charles W. Morse for a contemplated chain of banking institutions. 

    But in the end, Heinze's enemies did get him.  They reached his business partner Morse, gained control of his banking stocks and threw it on the market. This caused a crash which left Heinze stranded. A national bank panic resulted with the Aetna Bank of Butte going down in the crash and taking the savings of the miners with it. President Theodore Roosevelt came to the rescue with $25,000,000 loan out of the treasury but Heinze was cleaned out.  

    Heinze died in New York of cirrhosis of the liver with complications on November 1914 with only a few hundred thousand dollars willed to his young son. 

    On Heinze's departure Clark and Amalgamated had signed a truce. Clark, accepting the words of one of his trusted engineers that three of his principal mines were almost worked out, disposed of them to Amalgamated for a fraction of their true value only to find out later he was betrayed by his employee. The Amalgamated, within a year, took twice the purchase price from one of the three mines alone.  The betrayor of an employee it is said slipped of to South America, his pockets lined. 

    Clark continued to manage his few remaining Butte business and mining properties until his death, March 3rd, 1925.  Shortly after, in settling his estate, his heirs sold the remaining Clark interests in Butte to the Anaconda Copper Mining Company. From that day one, there was no longer the Copper Kings, there was only the ACM ruling the roost for many, many  years to come. 
 
 
 
                                                      A MINING DISASTER 
 

Mining was and still is a dangerous occupation. Many a good man has gone down into the womb of the earth in pursuit of ore never to return alive to the surface. "Missed holes" or dynamite charges that failed to go off, slabs of rock weighing tons teetering on the verge of collapse, fire and aliments of the lungs and body brought on by dust  were some of the dangers of the mines. Butte had its share of disasters through the years. Butte first major mining calamity occurred on November 23rd, 1889. Fire broke out in the shaft of the Anaconda mine, sending smoke and gas through the workings. Fortunately, the fire occurred between shifts with most of the miners out of the workings. Only 6 were killed and 2 were badly injured. 

    The years 1915-1917 were witness to three devastating disasters in camp history climaxing with the Speculator Fire of 1917.  On October 19th, 1915, 16 shift bosses and assistant foremen on surface for their lunch hour were grouped around the shaft of the Granite Mountain Mine awaiting the 12:30 whistle to announce the time for lowering the mine cage to take them down to their work. Beside them on the surface turn sheets a small hand truck with 12 cases of fourty percent dynamite waiting to be lowered as well. 
   At the first blast of the whistle, for whatever cause, the 12 boxes of explosives exploded with such fury, the sound of it was heard for miles. The 16 men standing around were blown to bits. Fingers with rings were found miles away from the scene of the accident. Undertakers scoured for miles searching for pieces which in turn were placed in one sealed casket. A combined funeral was held. 

     Early the following year, fire broke out in the workings of the Pennsylvania Mine. Fortunately it was undergoing repairs at the time and no great number of men were working. Twenty of the forty or so in the mine at the time, fell victim to the deadly gas.  Once again Butte mourned and combined funeral services were held with the entire city in attendance. 

 The United States had been at war for over two months on the night of June 8th, 1917. War industries were clamoring for copper. Every mine in Butte was working at full capacity. Among them was the big Speculator, with close to 2,000 miners employed on two shifts. 
     Oddly, it was the Speculator where "Safety First" had been stressed the most hardest. A crew of safety engineers was employed. All modern safety improvements and practices had been installed and motion pictures showing safety methods were perodically shown to the workers.  Attendance was compulsory.  
      But on that June evening, the night shift of some 900 men had been lowered and were at work. During the late afternoon and evening, ropemen and shaftmen had been lowering a huge, insulated electric cable to operate the venilating fans on the lower level.  The heavy cable had somehow become fouled and was hanging suspended in the shaft. For some time the workers had been vainly trying to free it. The assistant foreman on the night shift had descended to aid in the difficulty. The cable was an old one with the insulation in some places frayed and worn. Sallau, the assistant foreman, his carbide lamp in hand, was examing it in the endeavor to find some way to break the tangle and getting it started down the shaft once more. In some inexplicable manner, his carbide light came in contact  with the frayed edge of the insulation. 

     Like a light match thrown into gasoline, the insulation burst into flames. Acting as a chimney, the drafts in the up-cast shaft pulled the flames toward the surface and in an instant, the entire length of the cable was ablazed.  As the dry shaft timber caught fire, it was but a moment before the entire 3000 feet of shaft had been turned into an inferno. 

 At the first flash, Sallau and his assistants hurriedly descended out of danger, below the path of the flames. But by now, the damage was done.  Any effort on their part to prevent the spread of the flames would have lead to nothing but their cremation.  It was but a few moments before the flames were shooting out of the mouth of the shaft on the surface, consuming with incalculable speed the dry timbers and sending the deadly gas and smoke to every level.  An instant before the cable was ignited, two station tenders were lowered into the mine. Hardly had it disappeared from the surface then the flames shot out of the shaft.   When the torched cage was brought back up, all was found was some charred bones and buttons from the two mens' overalls.  Underground at every level, the scene was the same.  Many of the miners, smelling the first wiff of smoke, had made a run for it and escaped through levels of other mines adjoining the Speculator. These men were quickly hoisted out from these other mines. 

    Hours later, after the fire had burned itself out, an attempt was made to enter. Over a dozen volunteers were loaded on the mine cage, among them the man who's lamp had inadverntly caused the fire Sallau. As the cage reached its destination and the rescuers stepped off, they were met by a blast of the deadly gas and all perished on the turn sheets of the stations. All other attempts for rescue were abandoned until fresh air could be pumped into the mine.  

     Butte was shocked and stunned.  A check of the survivors showed that over 200 miners were still left down below. Barring a miracle, the survivors said that they had seen the drifts and stations strewn with the dead. The mine yard was chaos, the hospital filled with the injured.  Two days and a night had passed since the flames first started and fresh air was being pumped into the mine. All hope for anyone being alive was lost. All that remained was to bring up the dead.  It was then that a small miracle happened. Sitting in his chair in the engine room, the engineer of the Speculator was astonished to hear a signal flash from the depths where moments before he was sure there was no living soul.  Somehow, someone had escaped the deadly gas. 

    Another signal, he lowered the cage to where the signal was coming from and then raised the cage back up. Before the astonished onlook of hundreds of eyes who crowded around the shaft, nine men, blackened, haggard but alive stepped from the cage into the sunlight and bringing news that 16 more were waiting down below alive waiting to be hoisted above.  Down the shaft again went the cage and back again, until in all, 25 miners had been brought up from the dead into the sunlight of the mine yard. 

    The 25 men owed their lives to the brave act of one man, a 25 year old miner named Manus Duggan.Within an hour after the fire had started,Duggan marshalled a group of 29 men and gathered them together in cross cut into which the deadly gas had yet penetrated.  Hastily erecting a bulk head of timbers, canvas, clothing and dirt, he took charge of the little group of men in the small cramped cross cut, keeping up their morale and preventing them from making the break for a supposed safety that would have surely meant their doom. As tiny apertures appeared, Duggan forced them to strip their clothing from their bodies to plug up the gaps and keep out the gas.  As the long hours passed, breathing became more and more difficult.  When Duggan saw at last that it was only a matter of minutes before they all would succumb, he decided to seek a path to safety for his charges. Taking three of the men, he set out to find a path to safety through some other mine then coming back for the rest. Manus Duggan and the three followers never returned. Days later, their blackened bodies were discovered in a drift where they had fallen. 

    A memorial to this disaster now overlooks Butte.  It is also dedicated to all miners. Bricks have been laid out at the memorial and each one has an inscription by people who have bought a brick.  In between the bricks are concrete spacers and blocks of core samples from the mines. The cement pillars are adorned with engraved plaques that interpret and commemorate the loss of life and the heroic efforts of victims to escape the fire and smoke and of their fellow workers who struggled against time to save as many lives as they did. Here you can read more about Duggan and other stories of heroism. 

                                                OUR LADY OF THE ROCKIES 

  The Lady of the Rockies was started December 29th, 1979.  The head was placed on the statue December 20th, 1985.  The statue is in honor of all women especially mothers.  The statue is 90 feet tall and weighs 80 tons. The base weight is 425 tons. Our Lady of the Rockies stands 8500 feet above sea level on what is known as The East Ridge, 3500 feet above the city of Butte and is visible for 40 miles.  The state is illuminated at night. 

 Work still continues today on this project with the help of volunteer labor and donations and tours run daily during the summer up to the memorial. 
 
 
 
View from Our Lady of the Rockies. That big brown body of water is known as Berkeley Pit.  The Berkeley Pit and "Lake" are the legacy of one of the world's most monumental copper-mining efforts in Butte. The Pit was started in the 1960's after shaft mining for copper proved no longer cost effective. Steam shovels and trucks plied the open pit to depths of nearly a third of a mile, it was kept pumped dry but when mining ceased in the 1970s, this pit has filled up with water. 

 
A close up shot of Lake Berkeley. 

 WORLD MUSEUM OF MINING AND HELL ROARING GULCH 

                                            
Hell Roaring Gulch is a 19th century Montana mining town made up of authentic buildings, mining equipment and furnishings transported from various original sites to a bluff just northwest of Montana Tech in Butte by the World Museum of Mining.  The museum has many interesting exhibits on the history of mining and Butte in general.