blackfoot-valley

its two hell-for-leather towns Virginia City and Nevada City, within a year and a half, was crowded with over ten thousand people, and during its first five years produced an estimated $ 30-$40 million dollars in gold. For a time, the area was the center of activity in Montana, and Virginia City, the territorial capital; but within a decade the boom was failing there also. Today, Virginia City, as a restored historic site, is one of the major tourist lures in the state. “ The Gold Rush” © A. Rodriquez.com Romantic as the Wild West seems to moderns, looking back at the rough-and-tumble and periodic serious violence of the mining frontier, and not having experienced the scrabble and hardships that were a part of it (precious few ever struck it rich), the mining era did not, in fact, last long. The major exception, for a century or so, was Butte in Silver Bow County. It was not gold or silver that had staying power, but copper-developed by the large corporations-that gave Butte its century of longevity as a primary mining center. With the shuttering of major copper operations and the great smelter at Anaconda, Butte is presently declining as one of Montana’s major cities. Although free-lance mining continues, there is little to replace the large operations now closed. Butte is faced with either finding new pursuits and attracting investment for entirely different purposes, or die. 103