Heart of Butte District

    Within A Mile of Uptown 

     | Nearby Uptown | 

Tour Butte's Ghost Signs  

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There's plenty to see and do in and around Uptown Butte. Butte's Uptown district has always been a place where hard working people came when they had time to play. Here they could be entertained in theatres and museums, or explore the best clothing stores, specialty shops, and finest restaurants and watering holes in Montana.

Here are a few suggestions to get you started having fun in and around Uptown Butte. While you enjoy these attractions, we hope that you will also notice the potential to live and do business in our community.

Within the Heart of Butte District


Charles W. Clark Chateau Museum
321 W. Broadway St.
(406) 723-7600

Arts ChateauThe Charles W. Clark Chateau Museum is a 26-room, four floor historic mansion built in 1898 by Charles Walker Clark, eldest son of Copper King and U.S. Senator, W.A. Clark. The museum has two changing exhibition galleries, one permanent collection gallery, a sales gallery, and an interactive youth project room. The museum houses a diverse collection of artwork, 18th and 19th century furniture, textiles, and collectibles which are on display throughout the mansion. The museum provides fine art exhibitions from local, state, regional, and national artists; performing art events; and a variety of art education classes, lectures, and workshops.

Copper King Mansion
219 W. Granite St.
(406) 782-7580

The Copper King Mansion is a 34-room Victorian mansion completed in 1888 as the Butte residence of William Andrews Clark, one of Montana's "Copper Kings" who helped establish the fledgling territory. Through his many mining and banking ventures, Clark became one of the wealthiest men in the world. By 1900, Clark had amassed a personal fortune estimated at $50,000,000.
 
County Courthouse
155 W. Granite St.
(406)497-6200

The Silver Bow County Courthouse was designed in the Beaux Arts style with features that echo the grandeur of ancient Rome at a cost that rivaled the amount spent to build the state capitol building in Helena. Although the building remains in use as office space for county staff, visitors are welcome to take self-guided tours Monday through Friday from 8 am to 5 pm.
 
Dumas Brothel Museum
45 E. Mercury St.
(406) 299-2702

Under new ownership and management, the Dumas was designed and built as a three-level brothel in 1890 and remained active as a brothel until 1982, making it America's longest running house of prostitution. It was one of the first two-story brick structures built in Butte's famous Red Light District along Mercury Street.

Old Butte Historical Adventures
117 N. Main St.
(406) 498-3424

Get an up close and personal look inside historic buidlings in Uptown Butte accompanied by a guide to interpret what you see. Guided walking tours of one and a half hours are available that take you inside some of Uptown Butte's most interesting architecture.

Mai Wah Society Museum
17 W. Mercury
P.O. Box 404
(406)723-3231

The Mai Wah Society, Inc. is a non-profit organization that works to collect and preserve artifacts, preserve historic buildings and sites, presents public exhibits in its museum, and supports research and publications of scholarly and general interest. The Society is restoring the Wah Chong Tai Co. and the Mai Wah Noodle Parlor buildings to hold permanent and temporary public exhibits to interpret the Asian history of Butte, Montana, and the Rocky Mountain West.

Mother Lode Theatre and
Orphan Girl Theatre
316 W. Park St.
(406) 723-3602 or (406) 723-2300

The Butte Center for the Performing Arts is the non-profit organization that guided the restoration of Butte's remaining grand theatre. The building serves as a regional venue for musical and theatre shows and local productions for children and adults with dramatic talents to display on a world-class stage.


Piccadilly Museum of Transportation
Memorabilia and Advertising Art
20 W. Broadway
(406)723-3034

The Piccadilly Museum of Transportation Memorabilia and Advertising Art exhibits transportation memorabilia from around the world including advertising art, petroliana, underground train (subway) memorabilia, license plates and highway markers from around the world, a vintage replica 1920's service station complete with original gas pumps and furnishings, and a collection of vintage cars.

Within One Mile of Uptown Butte

Anselmo Mine Yard
Caledonia and Excelsior Streets

Once a working underground mine, the Anselmo remains intact and provides a showcase of underground mining technology, tools, buildings and the working environment of underground miners. Located on the corner of Excelsior and Caledonia Streets, the Anselmo is surrounded by historic homes that reflect how before the advent of the trolley system and the automobile, workers lived within walking distance of their source of income.
 
Berkeley Pit
Continental Drive

The Berkeley Pit Viewing Stand provides a stark view of the legacy of open-pit mining. The Pit operated from 1955 to 1982, removing 290 million tons of copper ore. It is more than 1,800 feet deep and getting deeper as millions of gallons of water flow into the Berkeley Pit each day.
 
Butte-Silver Bow Chamber of Commerce
Visitor and Transportation Center
1000 George St. (I-90 Exit 126)
(406) 723-3177
1-800-735-6814

The Center houses the offices of the Butte-Silver Bow Chamber of Commerce where visitors can pick up materials about visiting the area or relocating their home or business. Also, the Center contains historic displays and a display of George Grant's trout flies. Here is where regular tours on the Old Number 1 trolley of the historic Uptown district originate, too. The popular Blacktail Creek Walking Path along Blacktail Creek passes directly behind the center as well.

Granite Mountain Memorial Overlook
East of Walkerville
 
Interpretive plaques and memorial bricks commemorate the June 8th, 1917 fire here that took 168 lives, the nation's worst hard rock mining disaster.The memorial plaza affords a view of the Continental Divide, the Summit Valley, and surrounding signs of more than 100 years of hard rock mining.
 
Mineral Museum
Montana Tech Campus
1300 West Park Street
(406) 496-4506
 
The Mineral Museum, on the Montana Tech Campus displays more than 1,300 classic mineral specimens from Butte's rich mining district as well as from mining areas around the world.

World Museum of Mining
155 Museum Way
(406) 723-7211

The World Museum of Mining sits on the west edge of Butte just beyond the Montana Tech campus on West Park Street on 22 acres surrounding the Orphan Girl Mine, once a working silver mine owned by Marcus Daly. The museum includes Hell Roarin' Gulch, an authentic reproduction of an 1890's mining camp with more than 35 buildings to visit. All are carefully arranged with authentic artifacts from early Butte. The museum also offers an underground mine tour with interpretation of what daily life was like for underground miners. Also, the museum maintains a photo archives that contains an extensive collection of organized historical images of Butte in its heyday.

A Short Drive from Uptown Butte

Stay in Butte a little longer and use the Uptown as a base from which to explore the surrounding area.

Our Lady of the Rockies
3100 Harrison Ave.
(406) 782-1221
1-800-800-LADY

In December 1985, this 80-ton, 90-foot tall statue was installed atop the Continental Divide with Sikorsky helicopters. She now stands at 8,510 feet above sea level - 3,500 feet above Butte. The huge monument to mothers everywhere rivals the Statue of Liberty in her dimensions. Her nose is four feet long. Her eyes are two feet wide. Her lips are three feet wide. A new observatory and chapel were added at the base of the statue in 1997. A Memorial Wall in the chapel contains about 10,000 names submitted by family and friends of women from all 50 states and several foreign countries. Plans are underway to expand the statue's complex by adding a $3 million dollar tram to carry visitors from the valley below to visit the statue.

Butte's sister city—the Smelter City—where ore from Butte was sent by rail to be clarified by fire.

 

Fairmont Hot SpringsFairmont Hot Springs
13 miles west of Uptown Butte
(406)797-3241
1-800-332-3272

Commercial hot springs resort with an 18-hole golf course, RV Park and horseback riding nearby at Peterson's Corrals.

Old Works Golf Course
26 miles west of Uptown Butte
1205 Pizzini Way, Anaconda
(406) 563-5827

The Old Works Golf Course sits is the first golf course ever built on a Federal EPA Superfund site. It was designed by Jack Nicklaus to incorporate many historic relics in the design including inert black slag for sand traps.

 

Georgetown Lake
45 miles west of Uptown Butte

Summer boating, fishing,camping and hiking and winter downhill, X-Country skiing and snowmobiling recreational opportunities less than an hour's drive from Butte. See Discovery Basin at www.skidiscovery.com.

Gem Mountain Sapphire
50 miles west of Uptown Butte

A family-friendly place to have "good,dirty fun" sifting through gravel, hunting for genuine Montana sapphires. Located on the Skalkaho Road between Philipsburg and Hamilton in some of the most beautiful country in Montana.

 

Big Hole Valley
This sparsely populated valley 35 miles southwest of Uptown Butte is home to the Big Hole River, what some call the Last Best River in the United States.

Big Hole National Battlefield
The site of the August 9-10, 1877 Battle of the Big Hole when US regulars and volunteers ambushed Nez Perce men, women and children as they rested in their flight from forced removal to a reservation in Idaho. The visitor center and battlefield are 75 miles southwest of Uptown Butte.

Virginia City and Nevada City
These historic towns 90 miles south of Uptown Butte are the cradle of Montana, where gold was first found in the 1860s and treasure seekers got the idea that permanent settlements could succeed in the remote Montana Territory. Rides on steam trains, old fire trucks, stagecoaches, museum visits, gold panning, and self-guided tours through a frontier town are available.