Original Mine Headframe - Butte, MT - NRHP Historic Districts - Contributing Buildings on Waymarking.com

View waymark gallery

Original Mine Headframe - Butte, MT

in NRHP Historic Districts - Contributing Buildings

Posted by:  T0SHEA

12T E 381036 N 5097051

One of several headframes which remain scattered about the city, this is the headframe of the original copper mine in Butte, coincidentally named the "Original Mine".

Though the Original Mine was underway by 1878, this large headframe wasn't constructed until 1898, around the same time as many others. It was around this time that steel and iron came into use in the construction of mine headframes (this being one), replacing wood as the material of choice in earlier headframes. This was the headframe which raised the ore from the mine and lowered and raised the miners to and from the 3569 foot deep Original Mine, which remained in operation until 1976, nearly a full century.

This 100 foot tall (or more) steel headframe, like several others, has been saved from demolition and is now displayed as an historic artefact, representative of the city's copper mining heritage. This is entirely appropriate, as Butte, for more than a century was the "copper mining king" of the world, producing more copper (as well as zinc, lead, silver and gold) than any other city in the world. From 1880 to 2000 the Butte Hill produced 22,799,000,000 pounds of copper, 4,909,202,540 pounds of zinc, 725,486,448 ounces of silver and 2,922,466 ounces of gold.

A great deal of the copper was and is under the city and was mined by many mines which created over 10,000 miles of tunnels under the city with some shafts reaching deeper than a mile below the surface.

Original Mine Headframe

ORIGINAL MINE - Headframe - Structure - Contributing - 1898. Riveted H-beams connected to channel sections riveted with lacing bars sitting on concrete footings. 3.5 compt. Shaft with two sheave wheels atop and smaller sheave set an an angle to operate hoist.
Original Mine [1878/1898-ca. 1960, photo #13, 14]: Encompassing two full city blocks between Main, Montana, Woolman and Copper Streets, the Original Mine was the site of some of the earliest mining in Butte. Early pioneers found small pits dug by early prospectors with elk horn near the site of the Original Mine. William Clark patented Lot #39, launching the Original Mine in 1878, and two years later, Granville Stuart patented claims for Lots 86a and b. The shaft was driven to the 1,000-foot level by 1897 with 20 men working underground, six top men and three hoist engineers. The existing structures were built in 1898; they include a brick hoist house, compressor house and a headframe. By 1902, the mine employed 300 men who were working underground, twenty topmen, and three engineers. By 1906, the compressor house had four steam air compressors and two Ingersoll-Sergeant air compressors driven by twin induction motors. ACM obtained these mining properties in 1910.
From the NRHP Registration Form, Appendix C, Page 3