The west shore., August 01, 1885, Page 233, Image 7

THE WEST SHORE.
233
THE CAMP OF Butte
THE argest, busiest and richest mining camp in the
1 world to-day L EulU, Montana. Once that honor
was enjoyed by Virginia City and then by Leadvillo, but
W I! ""'lueBuonauiy belongs to the "Silver City" of the
7' Afl many respects it has not a counterpart
the United States. It is the onlv eitv in ti, it..;,
where the cry of "hard times" is never hoard, where
ioor is Kept lully employed, and where money circulates
freely in all the avenues of trade. With the substantial
business blooks and all the publio and nrivata oonvcn.
lenoes Bnd advantages of the most progressive city in the
a bum a typical western town, pulsating with
business activity, full of nervous energy and enterprise,
and spending its money with true Westorn prodigality.
The great mining distriot of which Butte is the busi
Hess centre is situated in Silver Bow County, on the west
side of the Rocky Mountains, and is about three miles
square. Within its limits are located 4,5(10 mineral
olnims, of whioh 1,490 are held under United States pat
ent The daily production of copper and silver bearing
ore is 1,900 tons, fully twice that produced at Load'ville,
whioh is reduced to bullion and ooppor matte, or, as in
some cases, shipped in the crude state to Baltimore or
Liverpool The various mining, milling and smelting
companies give employment to 2,500 mon, and y
monthly for wages and supplies the enormous sum of
1540,000. This is the secret of the prosperity of Butte.
A large proportion of wage earners, receiving their pay
promptly and earning per man a large average rata of
wages. Labor is fully employed, yet at all hours of the
day the streets are full of apparently idle men. To a
stranger this would seem to indicate a lack of work, yet
as the mines are worked by shifts, it is fact that all
those apparently idle men have regular employment and
are only waiting the hour when their shift shall go on
duty. The mines are worked night and day, for in the
bowels of the earth it is of littlo consequence whether
Apollo or Diana rules the firmament, anil, as a ooiise
quenoe, the city itself turns night into day aa oomplotaly
as electric lights can do so.
Butte, with its environs, has a busy population of
14,000, and property valued for assessment at 17,000,000.
It contains eight churches, three daily papers (3iVr,
Inter Mountain and Town Talk), three banks, a court
house which cost tl50,000, school facilities of a high
order and school projiorty to the vslue of t75,(X)0, large
brick business structures, the finest opera house on the
Facifio Coast outside of San Francisco, immense quart,
mills and smoltars, a good city government, two good fire
di'iuii'tmonts, electric light ami telephone systems (the
latter extending throughout the while district ami to
important points many miles distant), gas works (now
building), water works, and all the conveniences and
necessities of modern civilisation. The merchants are
enterprising ami awake to all the needs of their business,
while their stores and stocks of goods can he equaled by
few, if any, cities of the same siee in the world Although
"lively," in the tease that money flows freely and is s nt
liberally for amusoment in a multitude of forma, it is by
no moans so in the old and commonly vnt ynrin
of the term wheu applied to a turning camp, Law and
order are supremo, life and property are secure, and
there, as elsewhere, he who liohaves himself will not tm
molested, while he who does not will probably only !e
interfered with by the police. Socially Butte contains aa
large a proportion of educated and refined people as any
manufacturing city in the Union, a statement to whioh its
many fiuo churches and schools bear ample wituosa.
Quarts locations wore made in the vicinity of Butte as
early aa 18C4-6, but the expense, of freighting in machin
ery prevented the development of its lodges. Ten yoara
later the Utah & Northom Railroad opciied it up to the
world, and in the dooade which has followed this awaken,
ing it has grown from a straggling mining camp of COO
people to its present position as the greatest mining ooii
tre iu the world. The Utah & Northern is a narrow
gauge division of the Union Pacific, running northward
from the terminus of the iimin litis at Ogdcn a distance
of 454 miles to a junction with the Northern Psoiflo at
Garrison. It taps tlio Oregon Short Line at Fooatollo,
Idaho, and the Northern Pacific at Garrison, Montana,
and the overland travelor bv either route who fulls to
switch off at those minU and visit the famous "Silver
Uty will miss one or the most interesting and profitablu
features of a tour through the West A narrow gauge
lino also connects the city with Anaconda, where are lo
cated the immense smelters of one of Butte's largest
mines. The freight shipment from Butte by the Utah A
Northern average 12.0IX) tons per week. Outgoing freight
consists chiefly of ore and copper matte, while the re
ceipts are mainly oom potted of mining machinery, build
ing material, merchandise and produce. The cash re
ceipts for freight st the Butte dol in 1HH4 approximated
$5,000,000, the two towns of Butte and Anaconda iiavincr
ta the Union Pacific one-tenth of the gross receipts of
the entire system of that great oororation. Careful
statisticians estimate for the current vear a total bullion
shipment from Butte of 15,000,000, and of copper matte,
with IU percentage of silver, of 110,000,000, making a
total of 115.000,000. This will exceed the oomhined pro
duotion of Idaho, New Mexico and Arixona, will I twice
the product of Utah, croater than the whole of California.
and thrioe that of Nevada. It takes such comparative
statistics as these to make one fully realize the command
ing position of Butte in the mineral world
The following oareful description of the leading mines,
mills and smelters, and the various methods of reducing
the ore, will be found full of interest:
TDK MINES.
The mines may he divided into three chumes: First.
those which produce only silver ores; second, those which
yild exclusively copier ores; third, those whose ores
contain both silver and oopir. The silver on may be
sultdividn-i into two classes via., free ami base. In the
first the silver contents are extracted after the ore has
been stain ood bv siiuolv mliincr it with tnnrrnrv in water.
the recious metal amalguuinting readily with the quick-