World Museum of Mining

 museum, place with historical importance, mine, copper mine, mining

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155 Mining Museum Road
Butte, MT 59703
(406) 723-7211
www.miningmuseum.org/

The World Museum of Mining was founded in 1963 when the close of Butte's mining heyday was less than two decades away. In the end Butte Montana experienced a century of hardrock mining and earned the reputation of being home to one of the world's most productive copper mines of all time. The Museum exists to preserve the enduring history of Butte and the legacy of its rich mining and cultural heritage.

The World Museum of Mining is one of the few museums in the world located on as actual mine yard- the Orphan Girl Mine. With fifty exhibit buildings, countless artifacts, and sixty-six primary exhibits in the mine yard, visitors can spend a couple of hours to an entire day lost in the unfolding story.

By walking the streets of Hell Roarin' Gulch and venturing to the depths of the Orphan Girl Mine, on whose site the museum is located, you can almost see their blackened faces and hear their exhausted sighs at the conclusion of the workday.

Those who lost their life in a mining, mill/smelter, concentrator, or railroad accident are memorialized at the World Museum of Mining. Four memorial walls, constructed of polished black granite slabs, are sandblasted with the names of over 2,500 men that lost their lives in the Silver Bow Mining District since 1865. The number of deaths exceeds comparable fatalities reported in any other hard rock mining district in the Western Hemisphere.