to Butte, to Butte

We had to go to Butte for a major grocery/Wal-Mart run. It is about an hour away and you can either go on I-15 or take the road through the forests. Being us, we chose the latter. It was a great drive and we had a lot of fun. Butte is a really unique city. Gold was first discovered in the 1860's and it, silver and copper have been mined there ever since. The "uptown" part of Butte on the hill is really cool, with awesome old buildings and lots of mining history. The "downtown" part of Butte is...ugly. Seriously. Here are of the highlights of our grocery trip:

in 1913 (I think) a huge fire in one of the mines killed 116 miners. This is a memorial that overlooks the current pit mine. Some of the men were trapped for about 20 hours before either being rescued or dying. A few of the wrote letters to their wives or mothers while trapped and have been preserved here. Reading their final words to their sweethearts broke my heart!

The mine today

Several of these still dot the Butte landscape. They pulled up the cars full of ore and acted as elevators to raise and lower the men into the mines. Mine tunnels stretched as deep as 4000 feet underground!

Just one of the many really cool old buildings in Uptown Butte.

I thought this picture was funny so I had to put it on. Butte has always been a union town, but I didn't know that extended to sheep shearers too!

That white spot directly above the light post and chevy sign is a 40 foot Madonna statue on the mountain. I have know idea how she got up there, but she's well loved in Butte.