Butte, MT

We visited Butte, MT last Sunday. It was once know as the "Richest hill on earth". Gold was discovered in the area in 1864...then copper in 1872 and finally silver in 1875. The gold and silver didn't last but the mountain was rich in copper. The underground below Butte is miles and miles of tunnels of copper mines. Underground mining was finally stopped when the last mine closed in 1981. The pictures show the Berkeley Pit...an open pit mine started in the mid 1950's, and a picture of Butte showing the many headframes that dot the sky line on the left two thirds of the picture and the Berkeley Pit in the right one third of the sky line. The Berkeley Pit is very interesting. It is 1700 ft deep and 3 miles around. When they stopped operation in the early 80's the pumps stopped also that removed the water and the pit has been filling up with water for almost 30 yrs. Notice the color of the water...you would NOT want to swim in this water. It would be like swimming in battery acid. http://www.buttecvb.com/History.html