BUTTE — Underground mining is long gone in Butte, but there is a place people can go to see what once was an actual working mine at the World Museum of Mining.
“People just come here for the experience of going underground, they don’t necessarily care about mining history or history, in general, they just want to go underground. They love it, they’re astonished by how incredible it is down here. They come down here a little spooked at first, but once they get settled in they love it,” said Tour Guide Ken Bliss.
A tour of the Orphan Girl mine takes visitors 100 feet below ground into what once was a working silver mine that operated from 1875 to 1956. The mine still has the equipment, including ore cars that could haul a ton of rock out of the mines. The guides tell stories about what it was like for underground miners, including dealing with falling rocks.
“These rocks were so dangerous they got a nickname here in the area, they were called Duggans. The reason why there were called Duggans, is because we have a mortician in town called Mr. Duggan, so if you got caught by a Duggan, you got sent to Mr. Duggan,” said Bliss.
While conditions in this mine are safer than in the old days, visitors still get a sense of what the conditions were like for the early miners.
“The underground tour is special because just yesterday I had a gentleman come who took the tour and he’s like it really gives you a sense of what the miners experienced and it’s a job he wouldn’t want to do and it had to have taken a tough person to do the job,” said World Museum of Mining Chief Executive Jeanette Kopf.
Bliss added, “My grandfather used to work in a mine here in town and he used to say, ‘to be an underground miner you had to be the perfect blend of incredibly tough and incredibly stupid.’ And while he said that in jest it kind of does make sense, you were as tough as they got, but you also had to just kind of ignore the dangers of your everyday job to get done what needed to be done.”
Tours are done every day throughout the summer and are $25 for adults which includes the price of admission into the museum.
