My stepbrother, Anthony Tinelli, is visiting Montana from Minnesota , and our initial stop isn’t to go soak in one of the plethora of hot springs available in Yellowstone, nor do we get lost in the gorgeousness of Glacier National Park . We are at Pork Chop John’s in Butte munching on fattening sandwiches daubed in grease and grit – and loving each artery snagging bite.
We’re here because Anthony wanted to come and see “The Richest Hill on Earth" after watching Don’t Come Knocking – a dreadfully slow moving, mind-numbingly uneventful film shot in Butte , and only worth watching because you get to see some of the city’s intriguing architectural anomalies and landmarks on the big screen.
Butte , huh? Oh, yeah. I’m coming right out and stating it plainly and clearly: I love Butte , and I believe it to be a city graced by unparalleled historic charm. Standing here in the time-honored uptown district, eyes closed tightly, I can taste the city’s rambunctious past. Opening them up, I see the physical evidence of Butte ’s history very much apparent.
There are many voices telling many stories in this old rebellious mining town. A century ago the picture here was profoundly different: Mountain men and miners, bootleggers and cowboys, lived midst action and violence, with assorted rendezvous, barrooms and copper pits as the stage on which their heroism and backbone were seen, tested and remembered.
Yes, coming here always makes me feel like a creature allowed a glimpse of another world. This copper metropolis was once filled with men of stocky builds, ruddy complexions, and red moustaches, dressed in dark suits of clothes and grey soft hats. With a present population of about 34,000, though originally built for and occupied by upwards of 100,000, much of Butte ’s ancestry is well-preserved, authentically uncorrupted and promptly accessible.
Some things in life come full cycle: the city experienced a cultural explosion that transformed it from a discourteously blunt and gruff encampment of just a few hundred to a booming, cultivated mining Mecca in its prime. Today, however, the streets are eerily empty, and the number of residents living in Old Butte is dwindling.
Even now, the memories of the blood and sweat drenched through the underground sacrifices of Butte ’s miners are ubiquitous. Mine refuse heaps and alleys were children’s playgrounds. Arduous toil. Abundant tears. Precious metals. Barren earth. These mines made ghosts of men, men out of boys, widows out of wives, and fulfilled American dreams.
Outside of Pork Chop John’s, home of the famous $4.00 double pork chop sandwich, there’s a man dressed in denim, large shovel-shaped hands resting comfortably in his lap. I see two young women, arm in arm, neatly clad in long coats, their heels clacking as they cross the street toward me; cackling and chattering, their faces are made up, their hair dewed with mysterious sparkle.
It’s much different to be born and raised in Butte , right? If you’re 100-percent Billings native, you were probably raised among Angus, hay bailing, oil rigs, rattlers and feral hogs. Nowadays, being a Missoulian is to live among SUV’s and pick-ups, blasting the cantankerous melodies of substandard mufflers and incessant honking, alongside kamikaze bicyclists, panhandlers and people walking the city in shabby flip-flops. In Missoula , however, you’re more likely to see an attractive girl carrying an unusable bike, one recently catching several large thorns in the wheel, than in either Butte or Billings .
Newsman Walter Winchell once called Butte “a disgrace to decent people everywhere." At one point the city was loaded with millionaires, had a high quality of social and cultural life, and was a campaign stop for presidents. Today, it’s still environmentally inhospitable; it’s repeatedly derided as an aesthetic misfortune. In front of the rickety old Oriental noodle shop, there’s a not-so-graceful woman crossing the street, and she’s sporting cowboy boots and bangs. Two men in linen shirts stuck with sweat to their backs brush past.
Interestingly, Butte is home to one of the country’s biggest National Historic Landmark Districts, with more than 4,000 important and memorable buildings spread out across the Richest Hill on Earth. Heck, at one point, Butte rapidly boomed into a thriving mini- New York City with deluxe and tall hotels, fancy dining, unfettered gambling, classy theatres and a gigantic amusement park.
From decorated headframes marking old mine shafts, to some of the country’s finest vintage Victorian homes and elegant mansions, to richly detailed 19 th century churches, Butte is a fascinating piece of Montana and U.S. history. Plus, to this date, wacky and screwy stuff takes place here: the vestiges of Butte’s Chinese community take to the streets every February 4 th for what’s billed as the shortest, loudest, and chilliest Chinese New Year’s Parade anywhere in the world; held the last weekend in June, Evel Knievel Days is a beer-swilling, motorcycle-riding extravaganza that culminates with one of Knievel’s stuntman buddies hopping off the Finlen Motel (Butte’s highest building) while lit on fire.
Curious observation: Butte strikes me as a difficult place to encourage a sense of community, or a sense of agricultural self-sufficiency, or to educate folks about sustainable, diverse agricultural production. Then again, I am only an outsider, a number four license plate, a pesky and abrasive Missoulian, with questionable hygiene practices.
Is there a way of making Butte physically, aesthetically and socially more pleasant? Many mining headframes have been preserved, aged indications of the brusque city’s extractive heritage. Most of the brochures, television ads, and restaurant menus all use a logo that resembles some configuration of a headframe. Ostensibly, they represent better than any other image the innards and spirit of a boom town that became the world’s biggest copper producer.
Standing in front of the boarded-up Dumas Brothel, three thoughts and broodings enter my mind: the notion of sudden violence, the vision of erupting saloon fistfights, and the appearance of dangerous institutions. Actually, during one of my first road trips from Missoula to Butte , the building’s newest owner, Richard, kindly gave me and a friend the full tour of the premises. The Dumas Brothel was the longest-operating establishment of its kind in America , running from 1890 to 1982.
It’s been written that at one point there were 2,400 “ladies of the evening" working in Butte . Richard showed us the underground tunnels where men could visit while not having to jeopardize their reputations. The Richest Hill on Earth overlooks more than 2,000 miles of underground tunnels.
Thinking about prostitutes selling their raunchy bodies for a dollar in the sealed darkness isn’t a glamorous notion. But, hey, shameless ugliness has never been a quality wholly unfamiliar to Butte . For that matter – neither has genuine beauty. On a lazy Thursday afternoon, from an Irish saloon, I watch as Butte honky-tonks and drinks and dances and cusses and tussles. The city feels uncertain, panicky of the future, as if she’s heroically and terrifiedly clinging to the past.
» left by Cheech from Illinois (356 days 12 hours ago.)
Funny, quite readable, and a tad bit cynical. Good stuff. Not your average travel memoir, for sure. Respond to this comment
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