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On my way to Motel 6. You can see the biggest hole on earth ahead. At the time of its opening in 1954, the Berkeley Pit was the largest truck-operated open pit copper mine in the United States. Next summer I am planning to spend the day here in Butte. The last time I was in Butte was in the early 70s for the championship football game and all I remember is it was so cold!
Boyce Thompson was from nearby Anaconda where they also had a whole lot of mining going on.
Butte's mining operations generated over $48 billion worth of ore, making it for a time the RICHEST city in the world. Other major events in the city's history include the 1917 Speculator Mine disaster, the largest hard rock mining disaster in world history.
Copper ore mined from the Butte mining district in 1910 alone totaled 284,000,000 pounds; at the time, Butte was the largest producer of copper in North America and rivaled in worldwide metal production only by South Africa. The same year, in excess of 10,000,000 troy ounces of silver and 37,000 troy ounces of gold were also discovered. The amount of ore produced in the city earned it the nickname "The Richest Hill on Earth." With its large workforce of miners performing in physically dangerous conditions, Butte was the site of active labor union movements, and came to be known as "the Gibraltar of Unionism.
--As of 2017, Butte has the largest population of Irish Americans per capita of any city in the United States.
--The upper Clark Fork River, with headwaters at Butte, is the largest Superfund site in the United States.
-- The city's Uptown Historic District, on the National Register of Historic Places, is one of the largest National Historic Landmark Districts in the United States, containing nearly 6,000 contributing properties.
Boyce Thompson was from nearby Anaconda where they also had a whole lot of mining going on.
Butte's mining operations generated over $48 billion worth of ore, making it for a time the RICHEST city in the world. Other major events in the city's history include the 1917 Speculator Mine disaster, the largest hard rock mining disaster in world history.
Copper ore mined from the Butte mining district in 1910 alone totaled 284,000,000 pounds; at the time, Butte was the largest producer of copper in North America and rivaled in worldwide metal production only by South Africa. The same year, in excess of 10,000,000 troy ounces of silver and 37,000 troy ounces of gold were also discovered. The amount of ore produced in the city earned it the nickname "The Richest Hill on Earth." With its large workforce of miners performing in physically dangerous conditions, Butte was the site of active labor union movements, and came to be known as "the Gibraltar of Unionism.
--As of 2017, Butte has the largest population of Irish Americans per capita of any city in the United States.
--The upper Clark Fork River, with headwaters at Butte, is the largest Superfund site in the United States.
-- The city's Uptown Historic District, on the National Register of Historic Places, is one of the largest National Historic Landmark Districts in the United States, containing nearly 6,000 contributing properties.