Butte is located in west central Montana at an elevation of over 5,000 feet at the junction of Interstates 15 and 90. There is a small airport with commuter jet service from Salt Lake City. There is a bigger airport in Bozeman, some 80 miles east with service from Denver, Seattle, Minneapolis and Salt Lake City year round and other major cities like Chicago and San Francisco from May through September. The weather can be harsh in the winter and May through September is the best time to visit. Butte has a number of chain hotels (Hampton, Holiday Inn, Quality Inn) as well as a selection of historic house B & Bs.
When driving west from the Bozeman airport, the route passes Three Forks where the Madison, Gallatin and Jefferson rivers combine to form the Missouri, which then flows north to Helena and Great Falls. It then goes over the continental divide and the drive down into Butte gives a nice panorama of the city.
The Speculator Memorial at the top of Butte Hill is the recommended first stop. The memorial itself is an emotional experience and there is a wonderful view of Butte, the old Berkeley pit and the new Continental pit which is still an active mine of Montana Resources. If research on old Butte is desired, visit the Butte Archive downtown, where Ellen Crain and her staff will assist. Other stops are the many (14 in all) headframes, the mining museum and the Marcus Daly statue. The whole downtown is a historic district with many of the old copper king ‘mansions’, the Hennessey Building, Mai Wah, the churches and the cemeteries. For an authentic miner’s lunch, try the pasties at Joe’s Pasty Shop. June 8th, the anniversary of the Speculator fire is a special day in Butte.
Seventy miles north on I-15 is Helena, the state capital. The capital itself is worth a visit, with the Thomas F Meagher statue out front. The cathedral is magnificent inside and out and the Cruse Mausoleum at Resurrection Cemetery gives a sense of his outsize influence on the area.
The Helena Cathedral
Speculator Memorial
Robert Emmett Literary Association Memorial in Cemetery
St Lawrence Church in Walkerville
Hennessey Building, Butte
