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Butte-From Boom to Bust to Revival
It was the biggest city between Chicago and San Francisco at the turn of the 20th Century, an urban island in an ocean of wilderness. Butte Hill was the richest copper on the Earth. Entrepreneurs like William Clark, Marcus Daly and Augustus Heinze were "the Copper Kings" of the era. These copper barons dominated Montana's economy and politics, controlling four of the five major daily newspapers in the state, railroads, banks, power companies, land and even portions of the state Legislature.

Butte was a mecca for newly arrived immigrants. The pay was very good and dependable. Miners worked hard, but also played hard. The tradition for a new tavern was to flush the front door key down the toilet on opening day, because there was no reason to ever close the place down again as thousands of miners worked around the clock.

Today Butte's population has plummeted to 33,892, a fraction of its population from 1880 to 1920. The city's low point came in 1982 when Atlantic Richfield Co., which bought the Anaconda Copper Mining Co. in 1977, closed the mine down from one day to the next. Businesses closed, people left town and the town dwindled. But it didn't die. Today Butte is working hard to regain its former glory.

Earlier this year Butte was one of six Montana communities designated for Main Street revitalization through the National Main Street Program. Some of the town's main attributes are the buildings and infrastructure built during the boom times. The Uptown district was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1961. Jeff Francis, a Florida native has been splitting his time between FL and MT since 1999. He has spent $1.5 million on 12 historic commercial buildings that date from 1890 to 1920. He's convinced that Butte is on the cusp of a new boom, not built upon copper but on "wide-open spaces, peace and serenity, outdoor recreation, it's all the vogue. Butte has it. Look at Park City, Aspen, and Telluride. They were all mining towns. Look at them now."