Sunday, June 09, 2013
Another beautiful, sunny
day so we opted for the Trolley Tour of the city. The trolley is actually a
small bus made to look like a trolley, but we aren’t particular. Our guide is a
history teacher at the Butte High School, and he is really passionate about his
subject matter.
The tour started at the
‘pit’ which is how the Berkeley Copper Mine is commonly referred to. Most mines
in the Butte area are tunnel mines, but the Berkeley is an open pit, where the
copper was literally excavated from the earth by the ton. The mine was in
operation from 1955-1982, when copper prices fell to the point that mining the
remaining ore in the pit was not profitable. When the pit was in operation, the
ground water was pumped out of the mine, continuously. When the pumps were
turned off in 1982, the pit began to fill with water from both surface water
and groundwater. Due to both the natural geochemistry of the area and the
mining activities, the water is acidic and contains high concentrations of
dissolved heavy metals.
The water in the pit is
over 1000 feet deep and it is the color of iron.
From the pit we traveled
through the historical part of town where our guide pointed out the red light
district, the financial district and some of the mansions the mining barons
built. Opulence would be an understatement!!
Our tour was suppose to be
1-1/2 hours long, we were gone for over 2 hours, but well worth the time spent.
Afterwards we went to a renovated grocery store I had noticed while on the
tour. It was called Hennesey’s Market and it reminded me of the little
neighborhood market that we used to go to when I was growing up, before the
advent of the corporate grocery stores and supercenters we have now. It was a
nice step back in time.
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