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Show FAMOUS MINING STRIKES By THOMAS E. STEWARD Butte Takes Lead in Copper TTOIt about 30 years, Butte, Mont, - has been a copper mining district, with lead and zinc, as well as silver and gold, as Important by-products of the main Industry. As early as ISC-i mines te become famous as copper producers, such as the Park, Parrot nd Original, had been located, but no ore was known to exist in the famous fa-mous Anaconda hi'.l. Patent for the claim there was not applied for uutil 1S78. The big developments In Butte copper cop-per began in 1S72 when William A. Clark, later to be United Siates senator sen-ator and one of the most picturesque of American multimillionaires, turned his attention to that field. In the next two years he developed such mines as the Colusa, Mountain Chief and Gam-betta. Gam-betta. In the early period of copper mining min-ing ore was sometimes shipped as far ns Baltimore, Md., to be smelted and there was a recorded Instance where ore carrying $130 a ton in copper and 530 a ton in gold and silver returned no profit because of the excessive mining, min-ing, freight and smelting costs. It was natural under those circumstances that the smelting Industry should develop de-velop rapidly. Early ' methods were crude, but much capital went Into the venture and Its growth was swift Marcus Daly, next to Clnrk the most picturesque figure In Butte history, entered the district In 1S76 as the representative of the Salt Lake. mining min-ing Interests and In 18S1 began treating treat-ing ore from the Anaconda ledge as representative of the newly organized Anaconda Silver Mining company, from which has developed gradually the great Anaconda Cc-pper company of today, probably the largest copper mining, smelting and manufacturing concern In the entire world. Butte's period of great prosperity arrived when the railroads first entered that camp. In 1SS1 the Utah Northern North-ern reached Butte, giving an outlet via Ogden, Utah, to the. Union Pacific lines and the markets of the world. Later the Montana Central and the Montana Union railroad, now owned by the Northern Pacific system, effected ef-fected their entry. As an example of the richness of properties worked by the big companies compa-nies of the Butte district it is recorded record-ed in the volumes of the United States geological survey that from 1SS4 until 1S9S the Anaconda produced 9.f75.793 tons of ore, which yielded 1,008,922,000 pounds of copper. The ore ran 5 per cent copper and gave also 4 ounces of silver and 85 cents worth of gold per ton. As long ago ns 1SS7 Butte passed the Lake Superior district dis-trict to become the leading North American center of copper production, and not many years later It had attained at-tained world supremacy. As much as 20 years ago Butte was furnishing a fifth of the world's copper, three-fourths three-fourths of this percentage coming from the company then known as "Amalgamated Copper." This huge percentage In world production pro-duction has not been maintained In later years, but Butte Interests have purchased large copper properties in South America to make up in part the relative decrease In production. " |