The General Mining Act of 1872, a federal law, established mining practices and rules, many of which are still in force today. In Butte, arguably the most important provision was the Law of the Apex.

The North Butte Mining Company was working to electrify its Granite Mountain and Speculator mines, to improve safety, on June 8, 1917, when the cable fell.

Two days after Montana Territory was established in May 1864, the territorial capital was set at the mining camp of Bannack. It wasn’t a stretch to say Bannack was almost the only game in town, in terms of a city, so it’s no great surprise the capital was established there. But it lasted in that role for less than a year.

Fred Gamer senior was born in Baden, Germany in 1844, and came to America when he was seventeen. He learned the shoemaking trade in Chicago, but after the great Chicago fire he relocated to St. Joseph, Missouri, where he worked for John Fink who had shoe stores throughout the west.

Deer Lodge County eventually was subdivided into what are now mostly Granite, Powell, Deer Lodge, and Silver Bow Counties, with Silver Bow established February 16, 1881 and its seat at Butte. A county court house was needed.

Depending on how you measure things, the Anaconda Copper Mining Company grew to become at various times the largest copper mining company in the world, one of the five largest mining companies of any sort, and one of the ten largest corporations in the United States. Its growth was founded on the huge mineral deposits in Butte but fueled by even larger copper deposits in Chile.

MacLane began writing for her school paper in 1898, and in 1900 when she was 19 years old began a diary-like, autobiographical story that she called “I await the devil’s coming”. Her writing was exceptionally raw and sensual for the day.

Wheeler had a failed run for Montana governor in 1920, but in the US Senate election of 1922, he won. He was re-elected to the Senate three more times, serving 24 years and becoming a dominant force for Democrats in the senate. But Wheeler was an isolationist in pre-World War II America until Pearl Harbor, definitely an independent breed of Democrat.

Beatrice Murphy was 29 years old in 1909 when she worked as a night nurse at the Murray Hospital at Quartz and Alaska streets in Butte. She kept a diary for the month of November 1909 that reveals much about the times as well as Miss Murphy’s humor and wit.

About midnight on the night of May 19, 1902, John Williams, a railroad brakeman, was about to board the Great Northern train for Anaconda at the Silver Bow station when two armed men attempted to rob him. In the struggle Williams was shot at least three times and died a day later.

Butte may seem an unexpected place for activities by the Ku Klux Klan, but in its early days the Klan targeted Catholics, Jews, and foreign-born immigrants including Irish and Italians, as well as Blacks.

Marcus Daly died November 12, 1900, at age 58. Within weeks, the Marcus Daly Memorial Association was organized with the primary goal of commissioning a monument to the Copper King. The group contracted internationally known sculptor Augustus St. Gaudens, the Irish-born designer of the US $20 gold piece to craft a larger-than-life-size bronze statue of Daly.

In the presidential election of 1896, Butte and most of the western mining states favored William Jennings Bryan because of his pro-silver stance in the wake of the silver crisis of 1893. Although in Montana he gained nearly 80% of the vote, Bryan ultimately lost that election to William McKinley. But his loss didn’t diminish Butte’s admiration for him.

The Copper Block, built in 1892 as the Nadeau Block, was later known as the Empire Hotel. It stood at the corner of Wyoming and Galena Streets and was probably not constructed as a brothel, but its location near the heart of the red-light district led to its significant role in the seedy side of Butte.

Herman Kemna was a native of Germany. He came to America at about age 30 to work as an engineer on the Great Northern Railway in Montana, but his true calling was as an architect.

Situated at the border of two working-class neighborhoods, Centerville and Walkerville, Trinity Methodist was known as the “miner’s church” in Butte’s heyday, to distinguish it from Mountain View Methodist, which was the “mine owner’s church.”

On May 26, 1864, Abraham Lincoln signed the act passed by Congress separating the Territory of Montana from the Territory of Idaho.

The Sanborn Company began making the detailed maps in 1867, beginning in the Eastern United States. They were used as the gospel by insurance agents to determine liability – and cost of premiums – based on building materials, neighboring buildings, and proximity to fire stations and gas and water mains.

While molten rock was solidifying to become the Butte Granite 76 million years ago, sandy rivers flowing near what is now Columbus, Montana, watered dinosaurs and primitive mammals. And some of those river sands found their way to Butte—with a little help from an Italian-born quarryman.

Gertrude Pitanken, whose maiden name is not known, was born in Lincoln, Nebraska, in 1887, and came to Butte by 1907. Trained as a chiropractor, she worked as a nurse at the old St. James Hospital where she may have met her husband, Dr. Gustav Pitanken. Gustav died July 22, 1930, at age 66, and Gertie assumed his practice, which included abortions.