INDEPENDENT LENS
Butte, America
Tuesday, March 16 @ 8:00pm & 11:00pm
As Thomas Edison prepared to throw the switch that would signal the dawn of the electric age, an epic story was unfolding in the copper-rich mountains of Montana. BUTTE, AMERICA chronicles the rise and fall of a small mining town with a larger-than-life spirit—where fortunes were made and lost, and where community was precious, but life was cheap.
In the late 1800s, Butte, Montana, was one of dozens of frontier mining towns that sprang up nationwide. The discovery of copper ore in Butte’s mines coincided with the push to electrify America. Copper, prized for its conductivity, was needed in vast quantities—immediately.
Overnight, Butte became “the Richest Hill on Earth,†the most lucrative copper mining region in the world. Miners from Ireland and England flocked to Butte. Mines like the Berkeley, the Saint Lawrence, the Moonlight and the Neversweat employed thousands—but they needed more.
Known as the “Pittsburgh of the West,†Butte’s population swelled to 90,000, morphing into a vibrant, gritty, urban oasis perched on jagged hillsides. Miners from Scandanavia, Eastern Europe and the Phillipines established neighborhoods—Finntown, Parrot Flats, McQueen, Meaderville—each with its own churches, mom-and-pop stores and schools. Rules in the mines were posted in 16 languages; above ground, the largest red light district in the West flourished.
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