Butte - Hay, Jodie!
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Wondered whether you had seen this.
The beautiful and awful Butte -
Had not seen it. Butte is quite beautiful from an artistic point of view - the uptown buildings and old houses are incredible, and the views from uptown are spectacular - it’s probably my favorite city scenery-wise of all the cities it’s size and larger in Montana. But it is also poor (relative to the bigger cities) and pretty much a toxic waste dump. I would not have come here if we had small children. We live relatively close to where an old zinc processing mill once stood (the ore container still stands) and if you walk up past it where the railroad bed used to be, there are still places where the ground is made up of colors the ground should not be made up of. I don’t plant anything but flowers in my yard, my tomatoes are in containers with store bought soil. I do love it here, though am increasingly NOT loving the length of the winters. They are still actively mining here, surface mining happens in a massive area right next to the pit. The amount of $$ in copper and molybdenum (and a few other minerals) that gets pulled out of the hills each day is MASSIVE. The mining company does not employ that many people, 200-some, maybe? The family that owns the mine lives in Missoula.
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There is a tailing pond above the pit, you can better see the elevation from the second photo (which I got from this Reddit thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/Montana/comments/15s1s19/flew_over_butte_today/ )
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A friend of mine, a native Buttician (as some locals call themselves), wrote a damning piece for Harper's years ago about his home town: "Pennies from Hell"
At the time (and it may still be), Butte was the biggest SuperFund site in the country.
It is because of places like Butte that Montana's constitution--ratified in the early 1970s-- guarantees Montanans a "clean and healthful environment."
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Unfortunately you have to be a subscriber to download the .pdf of the article. Even more unfortunately, Eddie died not long ago of a heart attack. He also produced the documentary film "Butte, America."
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Jodi, you should think about relocating to the Bitterroot. Much, much shorter, warmer winters, and tons of great horse resources. Plus a very lively arts scene. We relocated the HoPos there for the winter because the ice on our hill is just too treacherous and taking care of them when it is 50 below zero is just too hard on us.
They are in the town of Corvallis, near Hamilton, and we've now visited 3x to see them and make sure all is okay. Loving the community there....Warmest valley in the state.
