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 Butte-Anaconda Historic District - Anaconda, MT Posted by:  T0SHEA
N 46° 07.401 W 112° 57.305
12T E 348951 N 5109610
This Historic District, listed in 1961 only in Butte, was expanded in 2006 to include Walkerville and Anaconda. This made it the largest Historic District in the country in terms of number of contributing properties, which totals 6,013.
Waymark Code: WMKMR9
Location: Montana, United States
Date Posted: 05/03/2014
Views: 5
In the Historic District are 5975 contributing buildings, 37 contributing structures and 1 contributing object. The district encompasses 27,200 acres, or 42.5 square miles. As the largest Historic District in terms of number of contributing properties, it has also been designated a National Historic Landmark. The whole shebang was the result of a couple of hills in the area containing vast amounts of copper ore and lesser amounts of other metals, such as gold and silver.
It took millions of miles of copper to build the telegraph, telephone, and electrical lines that transformed the United States from a collection of small, isolated communities to a cohesive, industrialized nation. Looming gallows frames and the towering Anaconda Company smokestack recall the industrial roots of these sister cities, the source of much of that copper. Extracting the metal was hazardous work, and the danger bred solidarity among miners and smelter workers.
Two of the nation’s most radical unions had their roots in Butte and Walkerville, “The Gibraltar of Unionism.” They were the Western Federation of Miners and the Industrial Workers of the World, whose rhetoric opposing “wage slavery” challenged the foundations of American capitalism. Clashes between capital and labor marked the district, especially after the 1917 Butte Granite Mountain/Speculator Mine fire, the worst hard-rock mining disaster in the nation’s history. Labor unrest and years under martial law followed in Butte, while in Anaconda, the Company fired suspected Socialists and agitators, devastating the unions. Butte and Anaconda workers reorganized during the New Deal after the federal government guaranteed the right of workers to unionize. Their four-month industry-wide strike in 1934 precipitated the birth of the CIO, an organization that helped rejuvenate the labor movement nationwide.
In 2006, the National Park Service recognized Butte, Anaconda, and Walkerville’s significance to the intertwined histories of mining and labor by declaring the district a National Historic Landmark. It is the largest NHL in the West, covering the period 1876-1934 and encompassing nearly 10,000 acres with over 6,000 contributing resources.
From the NRHP Plaque
Statement of Significance (as of designation
July 4, 1961)
The American Labor History Theme Study, completed in 2003, identified Butte as one of 16 sites that warranted further evaluation as an NHL for its association with labor history. The Butte-Anaconda district represents several themes discussed in the theme study, including: Marking Labor History on the National Landscape, Extractive Labor in the United States, and American Manufacture: Site of Production and Conflict. It meets the requirements for national significance defined in the theme study. This nomination also expands the NHL district to encompass all of the nationally significant resources associated with copper production and unionism.
While the 1961 designation focused on Butte, this nomination also includes the communities of Walkerville and Anaconda, as well as the Butte, Anaconda & Pacific Railroad. Walkerville represents the district's mining camp period and was the site of its earliest mining discoveries; Walkerville's mines were also the focus of the district's first labor strike. Anaconda, Butte's "sister city," was an integral component of the copper district. The ore that was mined in Butte was shipped to Anaconda via the Butte, Anaconda & Pacific Railroad for smelting. Established as a company town for the purpose of providing smelting operations for the copper district, Anaconda's history and development is intertwined with that of Butte and Walkerville. The Butte-Anaconda Historic District is a unique and outstanding part of America's built environment that is critical to understanding and appreciating broad patterns of the nation's extractive mining and labor history. The historic district powerfully illustrates the dramatic changes that resulted from America's emergence as the world's leading industrial nation. The meteoric rise of Butte-Anaconda to the pinnacle of world copper production was inherently linked with the advent of the Age of Electricity and the corresponding industrial revolution of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. By providing vast reserves of red metal just when it was needed most, Butte-Anaconda helped transform the United States into a modern economic superpower.
Butte-Anaconda profoundly affected the nation's labor movement. As America's "Gibraltar of Unionism," Butte-Anaconda embodied the strengths (and periodic weaknesses) of the industrial working class, spread the gospel of unionism, and spearheaded the formation of the Western Federation of Miners (WFM) and International Workers of the World (IWW). In addition, events at Butte-Anaconda catalyzed the schism that led to the formation of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO).
From National Historic Landmarks
Street address:
Anaconda, Walkerville and Butte
Anaconda, Walkerville and Butte, MT USA
County / Borough / Parish: Deer Lodge County & Silver Bow County
Year listed: 1961
Historic (Areas of) Significance: Industry
Periods of significance: 1900-1924, 1875-1899, 1850-1874
Historic function: Commerce/Trade, Domestic, Industry/Processing/Extraction
Current function: Commerce/Trade, Domestic, Recreation And Culture
Privately owned?: yes
Season start / Season finish: From: 01/01/2014 To: 12/31/2014
Primary Web Site: [Web Link]
Secondary Website 1: [Web Link]
National Historic Landmark Link: [Web Link]
Hours of operation: Not listed
Secondary Website 2: Not listed
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Visit Instructions:
Please give the date and brief account of your visit. Include any additional observations or information that you may have, particularly about the current condition of the site. Additional photos are highly encouraged, but not mandatory.
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