Butte

Butte started as an 1864 mining camp, but the real money began in 1874 when William L. Farlin's Asteroid Mine kicked off a prospecting rush. Marcus Daly's Anaconda Copper Mining Company, founded in 1881, eventually swallowed most of its competitors and ran the hill as close to a monopoly as any company town in American history. Between 1880 and 2005 the district pulled out over $48 billion worth of ore in today's terms, and every highway leaving Butte except westbound I-90 has to climb back over the Continental Divide to get out.

The wealth drew an extraordinary mix of immigrant labor: Cornish, Irish, Welsh, Lebanese, Finnish, Italian, Chinese, Montenegrin and Mexican workers all built neighborhoods that no longer exist — Meaderville, Dublin Gulch, Chinatown and the East Side were bulldozed in the 1960s and '70s as Anaconda's open-pit operations expanded. What survived is Uptown Butte, one of the largest National Historic Landmark Districts in the country with nearly 6,000 contributing buildings, plus a St. Patrick's Day parade that has run since 1882 and still draws roughly 30,000 people to a city of 34,000.

Mining shut down in the early 1980s, leaving Butte to build a second economy out of energy, healthcare and, unavoidably, Superfund cleanup — the Clark Fork River's headwaters here anchor the largest Superfund complex in the country. Butte's other export is Evel Knievel, born here in 1938 and buried here in 2007 after a funeral at the 7,500-seat civic center; the city still throws Evel Knievel Days every July.

The Berkeley Pit is the single strangest thing to look at in Montana: an open-pit copper mine, worked from 1955 to 1982, that pulled out roughly a billion tons of material and left behind a lake a mile long and half a mile wide, filled with water as acidic as tomato juice. A $19 million treatment plant now processes ten million gallons of pit water a day, and a viewing stand lets you look straight down into it.

The pasty is a meat-and-potato pie that, according to a 2013 Associated Press feature, immigrant miners introduced to Butte; Cornish and Welsh miners carried them in lunchboxes underground. Visit Butte, the local tourism district, describes the traditional pasty as a Butte staple, and the same feature reported that Butte pasties come dry, smothered or injected with gravy. We could not confirm which shops are making pasties now, so check a shop's own page or call before planning a meal around one.

Pekin Noodle Parlor closed permanently in April 2026 after more than a century as a family-owned Chinese restaurant. The building on South Main still stands, and the Chinatown it belonged to was cleared by mining expansion long before.

3 breweries within 10 miles of Butte, though our source does not record a public room at any of them.

Brewpub locations from Open Brewery DB (MIT)

Butte briefly had a minor pro basketball team, the Butte Daredevils (2006-2008, named for Evel Knievel), but no professional franchise plays here now. The Orediggers carry the hometown crowd.

4 more Highway Heads places lie within about 180 miles of Butte in a straight line — far enough that most are a night away rather than an afternoon.

• HelenaMontanaabout 45 mi
• BozemanMontanaabout 75 mi
• Yellowstone National ParkWyomingabout 140 mi
• KalispellMontanaabout 170 mi

A full day covers Uptown, the Berkeley Pit and the World Museum of Mining; add a half-day for Our Lady of the Rockies if the summer bus tours are running.

Best season is summer, both for weather and for festival timing — the Montana Folk Festival runs the second weekend of July, Evel Knievel Days the last weekend, and St. Patrick's Day draws its own crowd every March regardless of temperature.

Winters are genuinely harsh: Butte's record low is 52 below zero, and January averages around 20°F, so this is a warm-season road trip stop more than a year-round one.

Our Lady of the Rockies bus tours leave from the organization's gift shop at 1707 Continental Dr., Suite C. Its site lists up to three tours a day in June, July and August, with September and October weather permitting, and says all tours require reservations and no private motor vehicles are allowed. Pricing and the current schedule are on the tour calendar of its Buy Tickets page.

7 public campgrounds within 25 miles of Butte, 5 of them bookable ahead. Public campgrounds run by federal agencies. State-park and private campgrounds are not included.

Berkeley Pit

Address

Continental Dr, Butte, MT 59701

Hours

Seasonal, generally spring through fall; check ahead in winter

Price

Small admission fee

Link

mbmg.mtech.edu (Montana Bureau of Mines and Geology)

We checked operating status, seasonal opening and reservations on 2026-10-14. These change without notice — confirm with dailymontanan.com, pitwatch.org, visitbutte.com and ourladyoftherockies.org the week you travel.

Straight-line distance from Butte, not drive time.

• Bert Mooney (BTM) — 4 miles
• Helena Regional (HLN) — 49 miles
• Bozeman Yellowstone International (BZN) — 68 miles