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Note: Most of these
displays have been moved to the
Hoist
Building.
For you hardcore fans of
the actual underground workings, we offer the
Hard Rock Mining Exhibit.
Here you will find the
tools of the trade applied by the miners of
Butte in their underground pursuit of the
mineral wealth of "the Richest Hill on Earth."
These tools helped remove some of the nearly 22
billion pounds of copper from the
district — enough to pave the interstate from
Butte to Bozeman, 88 miles, with pure copper six
inches thick, shoulder to shoulder!
The nuts and bolts, the
drills and bits, the wheels and timbers are here
for you to examine in detail.
Explore the textures and
forms, the structures and devices of real hard
rock mining. This remote area called for
ingenuity, and many things that would have been
made of metal elsewhere were carved from wood
here in the early days. This contributed to the
denudation of the forests that once covered much
of the Butte area.
It is here, examining
objects from a miner's daily working world, that
you will really get a feel for the occupation.
The hall also includes a section with typical
objects of the day, ranging from early washing
machines to road maps.
The Hard Rock Mining
Exhibit Hall also houses the Roy Garrett-Pegasus
Mineral Collection with more than 1,600
fascinating and often beautiful pieces. Here you
will learn that chalcocite, a copper sulfide
that is an important ore in the Butte District,
is about 80% copper — yet it is a dull black
mineral. We also have a large display of
fluorescent minerals.
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