ABSTRACT
In the sixth decade after Meriwether Lewis and William Clark's small expedition had crossed from east to west the great northern territory that would become Montana, a few miners discouraged at the pickings in Bannack and Virginia City put down their shovels in the arid soil that would become Butte. There was enough gold and silver in this forlorn cup in the top of the Continental Divide to hold the newcomers. It was hot in summer, cold in winter, naked to all weathers. But the alluring metals attracted other disaffected or hopeful men from many places. Butte grew slowly at first, but was never again without men digging for elusive metal in a straggling settlement. Berton Braley retold in front-page sensationalism one story of a miner's death and its aftermath. The reporter was cheerfully manipulating his readers. Butte's camaraderie of democratic manners had a new and superficial respectability. Butte seemed unconventional to the rest of the nation.
