Collections
Genealogy
Services
Friends of the
Butte Archives
2005 Annual
Report
The Butte-Silver Bow Public Archives
P.O. Box 81
17 W. Quartz St.
Butte, MT 59703
(406) 782-3280
info@buttearchives.org
The Archives is open to the public Monday and Tuesday from 9 am to 5 pm and Wednesday morning from 9 am to 12 noon. We are closed from Wednesday at 12 noon through Friday.
Butte-Anaconda Historic
Landmark District
The Butte, Anaconda & B.A.& P. Railway National Historic
Landmark District process came to fruition in 2005. The Butte-Anaconda
Historic District focuses on the important history of Butte and
Anaconda during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, as Butte
came to dominate the nation during the rise of the copper mining
industry in the United States, and the smelting complexes at
Anaconda made that domination possible.
As Derek Strahn, the lead historian on the nomination noted,
"By providing vast reserves of red metal just when it was
needed most, Butte-Anaconda helped transform the United States
into a modern superpower." Labor unrest in the harsh world
of copper mining and smelting also profoundly influenced the
nation's workers. Following formation of the Butte Workingmen's
Union in 1878, Butte workers spread the gospel of unionism through
the working communities of the West. Nicknamed the Gibraltar
of Unionism, Butte's influence ultimately spearheaded
the formation of such important labor groups as the Western Federation
of Miners and the International Workers of the World.
The nomination
of the Butte-Anaconda NHL was a daunting task that spanned fourteen
years. The project was launched when Butte emerged among eleven
sites nationally highlighted by the 1991 NHL Labor Theme study. Encouraged
by officials with the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP)
and NHL programs, Montana SHPO and leaders of Butte and Anaconda
launched the effort to update and expand the landmark.
The Butte-Anaconda Historic District encompasses the area designated
as the Butte NHL in 1961, and enlarges it through the addition
of the nearby industrial community of Anaconda, the Butte Anaconda
& Pacific Railroad line, the Washoe Smoke Stack, and contrbuting
elements of Butte's mining and smelting landscape. The proposed
Butte-Anaconda Historic District with its more than 8,000 properties
encompasses a much more complete story of industry and labor
than the original 1961 boundaries did.
Disaster Plan
The Archives was awarded a grant from the National Endowment
for the Humanities to develop a disaster plan. The grant called
for the Archives to contract with Randy Silverman, Preservation
Consultant with the Marriott Library, University of Utah. The
Archives hosted a Disaster Planning Workshop, August 5, 2005.
In order to maximize the grant dollars and the educational opportunity,
the Butte-Silver Bow Public Archives invited all nearby library
and museum staff to attend the workshop. The final product was
an Archives Disaster Plan that has been adopted by Butte-Silver
Bow.
Access
In 2005, the
Archives provided research assistance and services to over 4,000
individuals, authors, students, genealogists and government agencies.
The Archives conducted 26 tours, public presentations and technical
outreach in the past year reaching nearly 500 students, people
and groups in the community. To see more about the research services
of the Archives, visit our Services area.
Collection Development
The Butte-Silver Bow Public Archives received 93 collections
in 2005. The Archives holdings cover a diverse subject matter
relating to the second industrial revolution and the settlement
of the American West. The Archives holds over 6,000 linear feet
of records, 1,000 volumes of books, 500 maps and blueprints,
and nearly 200 audio/video media. The types of collections include:
manuscripts, textiles, artifacts, books and volumes, and photographs.
For more information about our collections, visit our Collections area.
Professional Outreach and Educational Activities
The
Butte Archives and the Mai Wah Society were awarded a Montana
Committee for the Humanities Speakers Bureau program grant. The
speakers program titled Accessioning Museum and Archival Collections
was January 22, 2005. The event had fifteen people representing
five Southwest Montana Museums. The program was well received
and evaluations very positive.
Working with
the University of Montana and Montana Tech, the Archives hosted
representatives from the University of Cork College (UCC) in
Butte. Also present at this event Donal Denham, Irish Consulate
General of San Francisco offered a small grant to digitize the
Hibernian collection at the Archives.
The Archives Director with the Historic Preservation Office and
Pioneer Technical Services assisted with the documentation of
the Parrot Mine Shops National Historic Landmark Nomination form.
The Shops have been placed on the National Register of Historic
Places and Pioneer Technical Services is able to take advantage
of tax credits to see these important structures preserved.
Archives staff assisted KXLF-TV by providing text and photographs
for a series 
of TV ads titled
Historic Moments. The series brought a good deal
of positive publicity to our collections and services.
The Archives Director and staff worked with Clark City Press
to launch Mile High Mile Deep and Birds of
A Feather by Ed Lahey.
The Archives provided on loan several labor history artifacts
to the Museum of the Rockies for exhibition during the Hope in
Hard Times exhibit.
The Director
Ellen Crain attended an OCLC digitization Conference in Portland
Oregon. She was awarded a Montana State Historical Records Board
Scholarship to attend this workshop.
The Archives staff attended the Montana State Historical Society
Conference in Helena in October 2005.
Friends of the Butte Archives
The Friends of the Butte Archives held a film debut on April
23, 2005, featuring Galway Filmmaker Breandan Feiritear’s
film Seamus Morriarity as well as Sceal ar
Butte. The event was well attended and publicity was
excellent for the 
Friends and Archives.
The Friends of the Archives co-sponsored the book-signing event for Motherlode: Legacies of Women’s Lives and Labors in Butte, Montana. The Friends of the Butte Archives are the recipients of the royalties of the first 1,500 books sold by the publisher. To learn more about the Friends and their efforts to support the work of the Archives, visit their area on this site by clicking here.
