weed] ORE DEPOSITS AT BUTTE, MONT. 17 1 
having been built for and supported by the reduction of the Butte 
ores. Smelting' the Butte ores is also the largest industry of the city 
of Great Falls. Three transcontinental railways run to Butte, and 
its traffic surpasses that of all the other cities of the State combined. 
Originally named Summit Valley district, a name which is still 
retained in official records, and which is significant of its situation 
almost upon the transcontinental divide, where the waters of the 
Pacific and Atlantic separate, it is now universally known as rftitte, 
a name derived from a sharply conical hill that rises abruptly above 
the barren hillside on the edge of the city and forms a prominent 
landmark. The area comprising the district is a now barren hillside 
on the northern side of a flat valley bottom. This level valley is 
inclosed by an abrupt mountain range forming the continental divide 
on the east and the snow-capped peaks of the Highland Mountains on 
the south. To the westward a low plateau, now cut through by Silver 
Bow Creek, separates this valley from the great lake-bed area of the 
Deer Lodge Valley. 
DEVELOPMENT OF THE REGION. 
The Butte district of Montana is to-day the most important copper- 
producing area in the world, the product aggregating 2,841,791,572 
pounds to the close of 1901, with a total value of $381,209,050. The 
discovery of the copper veins of Butte was not made until after the 
district had acquired some prominence for its gold placers, and sub- 
sequently as a silver camp. The placer gold was first worked in 1803, 
the date of greatest activit}^ being in 1867, since which period the 
product ion of placer gold has become quite insignificant. 
In 1804 the first lode location was made, upon a vein now known 
as the Travona. This was the beginning of a period of very prosper- 
ous silver mining, and the district became the center of energetic 
operations, large mills being erected, with a considerable output of 
i silver as a result. This period of active silver mining continued until 
1892, when in common with other silver camps of the country the 
Butte district suffered a crushing blow. The climax of the produc- 
tion of silver ore was reached in 1887, when the different mills treated 
about 400 tons of ore per day and the smelters an aggregate of about 
100 tons per day, the average yield being about $25 per ton in gold 
iind silver. 
In the j^ear 1881 the Dexter mill was leased by Marcus Daly, for 
the newly organized Anaconda Silver Mining Company, and 8,000 
tons of oxidized silver ore, from the Anaconda ledge, Avas treated in 
this mill, yielding about 30 ounces of silver to the ton. The ore con- 
tained just enough copper to make it unnecessary to add bluestone 
Iin the raw amalgamation, but the resulting bullion was very base, 
sometimes running only 400 fine. In working the vein a drift running 
