If you are driving Interstate 90 or I-15 through Montana you will want to stop in Butte to see the underground mining districts and the largest concentration of landmark historical sites of the American Wild West. Where tall mine frames dot the hillsides and light up red as beacons in the night sky, a memorial to times gone by.
In it’s heyday it had more wealth per citizen than any other comparable place on earth up to the middle of the 20th century. Gold, silver, and finally copper brought Butte’s population to nearly 100,000 in 1917, with more than 150 underground mines running 24 hours a day. Today there are many reminders of the opulence, decadence, and wild lifestyles of poor European immigrants, miners, businessmen, and of the wealthy “Copper Kings.”
If you can drop your trailer at The Town Pump Pilot station on the west side of Butte, drive your tractor to the parking area sitting atop the city’s richest hill at the Old Lexington Gardens. On site is the old stamp mill, owned by Montana’s first millionaire and a beautiful view of the city below. It is located on the corner of Granite and Arizona Street.
If you have time to stop for a tour, get an overview of the sites at Old Butte Historical Adventure Tours whose guides, dressed in period costumes, will take you on a fabulous walking tour of the historic buildings in the uptown area. They stop in seven museums along the way.
One of the highlights of touring Butte is The Copper King Mansion, a 34-room Victorian mansion built in the 1880s as local home of William Andrews Clark, one of the “Copper Kings” and a scandalous Senator of Montana. It was one of many homes he built around the world at a cost of $250,000, a huge sum of money in those days but which was only half of one day’s earnings for him.
It is easily found if you are approaching Butte on Interstate 90, look for exit #126, turn north and drive up the hill on Montana Street and come all the way to Uptown Butte. When you reach the traffic light at Granite Street (you’ll see the County Courthouse on the right) take a left turn and they are a half a block from that intersection on the north side of the street.
From May 1st through September 30th, the mansion is open daily for guided tours every hour from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm. The price of the guided tour is $7.50 for adults. The tour is free for you if you stay as an overnight guest. To arrange a tour, or to reserve a room for the night, call 406-782-7580 or send e-mail to thecopperkingmansion@gmail.com.
Drive out for a look into Berkley Pit, the open pit copper mine that ate up the hillside and was once the largest truck operated copper mine in the United States. It is approximately 1,780 feet deep and filled to a depth of about 900 feet with acidic water after it was closed in 1982. There is a tunnel from the gift shop to the pit overlook.
If you go, take the walking tour into a mine at the World Mining Museum too, on the west side of town through the College campus. Another recommendation is to enjoy a nostalgic lunch at Sparkey’s Garage Cafe.
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Driving on I-70 through Utah means cutting across one of the emptiest and least developed regions of Utah, it is a long drive but there is beautiful country to see. It may surprise you how very scenic this road trip can be in any season, with access roads branching off to Moab, Canyonlands National Park, Capitol Reef National Park and numerous State Parks; the most popular being Goblin Valley State Park.
You will see jutting rock formations the Native American Indians called the silent cities, slicing into the sky, colors that burn your memory with visions of the Southwest. When you see a wide plateau crossed by two entrenched river systems and surrounded by a ring of upturned strata; this is the San Rafael Swell. It is an arid, very scenic area, with mesas, cliffs, buttes, springs and canyons. The Swell itself is an oval shaped uplifted area of layered rocks, most of which has been eroded away forming the mostly flat central plateau, while the strata at the edges are left exposed and angled near vertically. In the San Rafael Reef are found most of the spectacular canyons especially in the southeast section.
Devils Canyon is a beautiful slot seen in a section of the San Rafael Swell to the north of the highway. Access is relatively easy. Devils Canyon roughly parallels I-70 on the west side of the Swell. Take Exit 114 (Moore Cutoff) and drive south from the freeway onto Justensen Flat. The road winds east and then south as it drops down the cliff face into Devils Canyon but it is only for four wheel drive vehicles, trucks should stick to the rest stop pull-out overlooks to enjoy the view.
It is a little scary getting into the overlook points in the winter if the snow piles up. But during other months of the year there is truck parking up the hill into the overlook and I usually find another truckers stopped there too. Drivers can get out of the cab to stretch or even walk down the trails to the rim. At the pull out view points the Native Americans also sell their wares and tourists stop for pictures.