Episode 2 - The New York Drift

In this episode, we take a look at what it was actually like to work underground on the Butte hill, and we hear the unique voices of the men who were there, as we draw from the oral history collection at the Butte-Silver Bow Public Archives.

Episode 3 - Working for Anaconda, Part 1

The history book tale of the Anaconda Company is but one version. This company was ultimately made up of individual lives, men and women who bought their homes, educated and fed their families and built their lives with the wages earned on Anaconda’s time. In this episode, we hear a more human side of the story of The Company, and get to know personally some of its career miners and workers.

Episode 5 -Get Off the Hill

We look at the transition from underground mining to the open pit, and we get a sense of how close Butte came to tearing itself apart to keep the Anaconda Company going. Butte, Montana is a model city, or at least it was. Back in the late 1960s, America’s biggest copper mining town was deteriorating. With unemployment rising and income levels dropping, the Economic Development Administration selected Butte as one of 150 cities nationwide to participate in the Model Cities program.

Episode 6 - One Long Street

There’s a great sense of loss about these neighborhoods in Butte, even today. With so many empty lots in the historic district, we’re left with only photos of a grand mining metropolis that is no more. With Meaderville, the loss is even more extreme; the very ground that the people once lived on has been blasted into pieces and hauled away to the mill and smelter. The land upon which this community was built now sits in the sky, high above the toxic lake that has filled the open pit that ate the town.

Episode 8 - Women at Work

With so much attention on the men who worked in the underground mines of Butte, I was left wondering: were there women working underground? If so, what was it like for them? Well, it turns out that there were a few women working in the underground mines, though they are a rare exception to the norm. For the first half of this episode, we’ll hear from two women who had experience working underground, and in the second half we’ll take a look at some of the hard work that women did outside the home in other areas of the mining city.

Episode 9 - Going Underground

Today we’re underground in a Butte mine with Larry Hoffman, an old time miner and instructor of mining engineering at Montana Tech. Along with my colleague Daniel Hogan, we’re descending into the mine on foot with Larry. This educational mine operation isn’t powered by one of the giant head frames and hoist engines like you see dormant on the Butte hill today. This mine has an opening big enough to drive a pickup truck down into it.

Episode 11 - Deal of the Century

We left off the last episode with a big shutdown in the mining city of Butte, Montana. After Atlantic Richfield bought the remaining pieces of the Anaconda Company empire in Montana in 1977, they only lasted about 5 years before they closed all mining and smelting in Montana permanently. It was a bad time for the people of Butte and thousands of men were out of work.

Episode 12 - The Church

The Catholic Church was central to all aspects of life in the Butte community for nearly a century. In this episode, we hear from longtime Butte residents about their experiences within the church. For most, it was a center point of spirituality, charity work and activism that gave them purpose. For others, it was a source of lifelong trauma.

Episode 14 - Strikes

The history of unionism in Butte, Montana is well documented. We refer to it as the Gibraltar of Labor because union roots run so deep here. In this episode, we look back at how strikes affected families and community, and how the town often pulled together to support strikers. We also hear from former Anaconda Company management and get an insider’s look at how the Company responded to strikes.

Episode 15 - Family Ties

The fabric of the Butte community has often been held together by the matriarchs of large families that lived on the Butte hill. In this episode, we hear from Virginia Salazar and Irene Scheidecker, both part of large Butte families. Their commitment to their family and their town tells the story of Butte’s resilience through the lens of motherhood and kinship.

Episode 17 - The East Side

Today, Broadway Street abruptly ends just past the Helsinki Bar with barricades, fencing, and the eastern edge of the Berkeley Pit. What was the East Side of Butte like before the pit consumed it? We speak with longtime UM professor Fred McGlynn and several others to learn the history of Finntown and East Butte, neighborhoods destroyed by open pit mining.

Episode 18 - The Uptown

Uptown Butte is the historic central business district, distinguished from more modern, strip-mall style development down in the ‘Flats.’ In this episode, we examine the Uptown from its peak in 1917 to modern day efforts to redevelop the largely vacant urban core. From the fires of the 1970s to the demolition initiative called Butte Forward, we look deeply at the complexity of one of America’s largest National Historic Landmark districts.