Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
A highlight of the museum is its
Hell Roarin' Gulch,
a full-scale, authentic reproduc-
tion of an 1890s mining town. There are 50 buildings on the site, 15 of which are original
historic buildings that have been relocated to the museum. While on-site, visit a bank, a
general store, a school, and even a Chinese herbalist whose shelves are stocked with ori-
ginal herbs and medicines. The buildings have been painstakingly re-created using as many
antiques and original materials as possible.
MONTANA'S SUPERFUND SITES
Big Sky Country is most often associated with images of pristine lakes, majestic
mountains, and wide-open grasslands. But toxic wastelands? And the worst one in
the country? It seems far-fetched. However, even this beautiful state has had to come
to terms with its complex history. Although Montana's mining industry attracted
worldwide recognition and contributed to the state's importance, it also wreaked hav-
oc on Montana's natural environment, scarring the landscape and contaminating both
water and soil. Today, in partnership with the U.S. government's Environmental Pro-
tection Agency (EPA), a major cleanup is underway.
The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act
is more often known as the Superfund program. It was created in 1980 to clean up
hazardous waste sites that posed a threat to public health and the environment. The
area surrounding the Upper Clark Fork River, which encompasses Butte, Anaconda,
and Missoula, is the largest Superfund area in the country. There are actually four in-
dividual sites in the region, all of which resulted from copper production, most of it
by the Anaconda Copper Mining Corporation (ACM).
In the late 1800s, Butte's smelters were adjacent to the mines, and the toxic fumes
created massive amounts of thick smoke. In mines without smelters, the copper sulf-
ide ore was spread over large piles of logs and ignited. The piles burned for weeks,
releasing highly toxic particles and fumes into the air and leaving residue on the
ground that would leach into the water table. The mining and smelting in Butte not
only contaminated Butte Hill but was carried downstream and downwind as far as
Milltown, 120 miles north.
Butte was famously without vegetation—the only green area in town was a small
and beloved amusement park named Columbia Gardens that was built by the ACM
upwind of the smelters and could thus support green grass—and its citizens were
