Well, the rendezvous is over and Lesley and I had an awesome time. The rally itself went off without a hitch, that I know of.
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Some Butte History
Butte, Montana, began its modern history in the late 19th century as a modest gold and silver mining camp. Founded in 1864, the settlement quickly expanded as prospectors flooded the area seeking precious metals. However, the true transformation of Butte occurred in the 1880s with the widespread commercial introduction of electricity. This global shift created an insatiable demand for copper, an excellent electrical conductor. Butte happened to sit directly on top of one of the richest copper deposits on Earth, earning it the enduring nickname, “The Richest Hill on Earth.”
The resulting copper boom turned Butte into a bustling, cosmopolitan metropolis and a powerhouse of the American Industrial Revolution. Industrialists known as the “Copper Kings”—chiefly Marcus Daly, William A. Clark, and F. Augustus Heinze—waged fierce legal, political, and financial battles for control of the underground riches. The city attracted a massive, diverse wave of immigrants from Ireland, Cornwall, China, Finland, and Italy, transforming Butte into a vibrant melting pot. By the early 20th century, it was the largest city between Chicago and San Francisco, boasting a highly organized labor movement and a reputation as a wild, wide-open urban center in the middle of the American West.
As the decades progressed, the methods of extraction shifted from underground shaft mining to large-scale open-pit mining, permanently altering the city’s landscape. In 1955, the Anaconda Copper Mining Company launched the Berkeley Pit, an immense open-pit operation that consumed several historic neighborhoods but kept the local economy alive for nearly thirty years. When mining operations at the pit finally ceased in 1982, the pumps were turned off, and the massive crater began filling with highly acidic, metal-laden water. Today, Butte is home to one of the largest Superfund cleanup sites in the nation, balancing its complex environmental legacy with a deep pride in its rich architectural heritage, labor history, and resilient community spirit.
