Butte, America’s Story Episode 144 - Anaconda Mine

Welcome to Butte, America’s Story. I’m your host, Dick Gibson.

It’s well known that Michael Hickey named his mine for a Civil War newspaper article by Horace Greely in which Greeley referred to McClellan’s army encircling Lee’s forces like a giant anaconda snake. Hickey served in McClellan’s army and gave the name to his claim in Butte in October 1875.

Michael Hickey had come to Butte in 1866 from St. Lawrence County, New York, with his brother Ed, but they knocked around the region for nearly ten years before establishing their claims, with Michael staking the Anaconda, and Ed the St. Lawrence.

Michael partnered with Dave O’Rourke to dig a hole based on traces of green copper carbonate on the surface. The shaft was dug with the help of a windlass hoist, and at 15 feet they found silver ore and ultimately chased it to about 35 feet down. Hickey recalled most of this as “representing,” meaning what we would call assessment work today, enough to maintain his claim.

Hickey was involved in a claim-jumping suit with Dave Upton, but Hickey prevailed in that case. Interest in his mine was increasing, and Judge Andrew Jackson Davis offered him $700 for it which Hickey declined. He gave a one-third interest in the Anaconda to Charles X. Larrabee for free, in return for help with the work. Larrabee went on to establish the Butte Pubic Library.

The Anaconda was producing free-milling ore requiring minimal processing, but the only mill in town, Clark’s, was charging clients $45 a ton – too much to make Hickey’s effort worthwhile. By the end of 1876, when the mine was an untimbered shaft 35 feet deep, Marcus Daly offered to sink the shaft an additional 50 feet in return for a one-third interest, which Hickey granted.

Daly was clearly convinced of the Anaconda’s value early on, because at 85 feet deep, he offered Hickey a lease and bond of $30,000, which would include an ultimate payout of $10,000 for Hickey’s remaining one-third interest as well as $14,000 in development work. Hickey had no money for exploration, so he jumped at the opportunity.

In the spring of 1877 someone offered Hickey $17,000 for his interest, but he stayed true to his agreement with Daly, even though Daly hadn’t yet paid him his $10,000. That payoff, a fortune in those days, didn’t come until about 1881, and Hickey was then done with the Anaconda. He believed in 1895 that “there is no bottom to the Anaconda Mine,” which was not literally true, but for all practical purposes the Butte district was indeed a bottomless pit of mineral wealth.

Before Daly’s smelter in Anaconda opened in 1884, as much as 80 tons of ore a day was shipped from the Anaconda Mine by train and wagon to Ft. Benton, by barge to New Orleans, and by ship to Swansea, Wales, for smelting. At 50% to 80% copper and around 25 ounces of silver per ton, the ore was rich enough that even that lengthy trip was economical.

As writer Edwin Dobb has said, "Like Concord, Gettysburg, and Wounded Knee, Butte is one of the places America came from." Join us next time for more of Butte, America’s Story.