Vernacular Architecture Forum
Mining Metropolis: An Island
in a Stockman's Paradise
Under Montana's Big Sky
June 10-13, 2009
| BUTTE A third of the world's copper in 1910 Gibraltar of Unionism Richest Hill On Earth 13 urban headframes Deadliest metal mine disaster Berkeley Pit America's #2 red-light district ANACONDA Tallest smokestack BA&P Railroad Smelter City Goosetown District 
|
10-13 June 2009
Montana is the country's the fourth largest state with 147,138 square miles and is home to fewer than 1,000,000 residents. Butte, population 33,000, is our conference headquarters. The city is part of the largest National Historic Landmark in the United States, containing approximately 4,000 contributing properties. At an elevation of nearly 6,000 feet, the city is rich with evident history of the contentious phenomena of hard rock and open pit mining, immigration, divided social classes, ethnic diversity, industrial capitalism, corporate power, railroad building, electrification, labor unions, prostitution, political power brokers, market decline, environmental liability, and many others which illustrate the fertile ground of the west. Butte experienced explosive growth to an estimated 100,000 by 1917, due to the shrewd exploitation of what was then the largest known deposit of copper ore in the world. It was a boisterous and wealthy cosmopolitan city, often compared with San Francisco or New York in its time.
Within just a 100-mile radius of Butte lies a wide range of historic sites illustrating a variety of experiences of settlement in the Rocky Mountain west. Some of these are spectacular in their natural context and unchanged original construction. It would be difficult to drive from Butte in any direction, and not be taken by the astounding power of the natural context over the sparse settlement pattern, and the vividness of contrast between cultural artifact and the elements. It is remarkably easy to envision earlier stages of settlement in these vast landscapes.
For those of you planning to come early and stay late, there is much to see and enjoy. Butte is only 150 miles from the much beloved Yellowstone National Park, and only 285 miles from the awe-inspiring Glacier National Park.
Opening Reception - Cocktails and hors d'oeuvres. Silver Bow Club.
Keynote Address - Long-time contributor to Harper's Magazine Edwin Dobb will introduce us to Butte and southwest Montana. Mr. Dobb wrote "Pennies From Hell: In Montana, the Bill for America's Copper Comes Due" (Harper's, October 1996). And he recently co-wrote "Butte, America", a PBS documentary to air in Fall 2009. (Bio) The presentation will be held in the 1924 Mother Lode Theatre. Transportation will be provided to and from the War Bonnet Inn and Montana Tech dorm rooms. Attendees staying at the Finlen are within walking distance of both the Silver Bow Club and the Mother Lode Theatre.
Approximately 27 properties will be open exclusively to VAFers. To help you choose which sites you'd like to see, a list will be available online by March 1, 2009. Butte is a particularly pleasant city to walk, because it has relatively small blocks, and very little traffic. However, vans will loop around the area to help participants see as much as possible.
Progressive Reception - Hors d'oeuvres at Hirbour Barber Shop, Butte City Jail, and Rookwood Speakeasy. This will be an opportunity to enjoy several of the highly visited properties in Uptown Butte. Transportation to and from the hotels and dorm rooms will be provided.
Ranching themes range from the unique three-level circular barn near Twin Bridges to modern vernacular grain silos modified to serve as residences-one with a matching mini-silo doghouse! Historic Twin Bridges, where Lewis and Clark had more choices to make as they ascended the Jefferson River, will welcome you to dinner at the Madison County Fair Grounds and a National Register-listed polygonal arena, about a block from the Blue Anchor, a classic Montana saloon.
Northwest Tour - Option 2
No excursion into Montana's historic towns would be complete without sampling the hardy local cuisine. This tour will include a traditional pasty box lunch reminiscent of those consumed by smeltermen in Anaconda and a barbeque dinner at the famed Grant-Kohrs Ranch under the Big Sky - all served up with legendary Montana hospitality.
Banquet - The conference will conclude with a banquet at the Front Street Station, the lovely, recently restored Northern Pacific Depot. There we will host the annual VAF meeting, awards, invitation to next year's conference in Washington, DC, and live music.
The operational transition to open pit mining in the mid 20th century, followed by changes in mine ownership, closures, environmental regulation, the declining copper market, and other factors, contributed to severe declines in the demand for mining labor, with Butte's population scattering far afield to find work. Investment in Butte altogether evaporated, and businesses closed down. By another twist of fate, because the uptown area had developed directly from its origins as a mining camp high on the hillside on top of the underground mines, uptown is almost a mile away from Interstates 15 and 90. The heart of the city, therefore, and many of its urban neighborhoods, were not attractive ground for strip development or renewal. While this was unfortunate for Butte's prospects for economic development, it had the advantage of leaving the historic uptown district completely intact through benign neglect, as an architectural testament to its past. 
Door hardware, Butte Wednesday, June 10, 2009
VAF Board Meeting - Historic Finlen HotelThursday, June 11, 2009
Butte Day! - Butte will welcome your explorations of architecture ranging from the truly vernacular in the remnant of an 1890s shanty town, (home to immigrants, bootleggers, widows, and downtrodden minorities) to the second skyscraper west of Minneapolis and St. Louis, just a few blocks away. Juxtaposition is the theme in Butte - a tiny miner's cottage may share a block with a huge residential hotel, a porch-fronted four-plex, middle class single family homes, and an elegant mansion. Former brothels are adjacent to Butte's version of Chinatown. And all are within sight of the mines. Fourteen surviving headframes, some 120 feet tall, dot the hills just dozens of feet from residences and the main Uptown commercial district. 
This 1898 miner's cottage on Granite Street is typical of small residences. It will be open on Butte Day. Friday, 12 June 2009
Southeast Tour - Option 1
This excursion will explore themes of early, remote mining camps, ghost town, county fairgrounds, and one of Montana's few round barns. Virginia City was the second Territorial Capital of Montana and is now a well visited National Historic Landmark with nearly all its original buildings and landscapes. It is a living town of 150 year-round residents who host the West's best preserved gold mining town from the 1860s. Both Virginia City and Pony have preserved much of their original fabric, with an overlay of modern ranching and tourism. Nearby Nevada City contains fourteen original buildings and nearly 100 relocated buildings. It is an early 1950s example of preservation-collected buildings from across the state that would otherwise have been lost. 
The National Register listed octagonal pavillion at the Madison County Fair Grounds (Twin Bridges) will be the dinner venue for the SE tour.
The Northwest Tour promises a rich immersion into the vernacular architecture of southwest Montana as well. From Anaconda, the 19th-century copper-smelting center, to the quintessential Montana gold mining towns of Phillipsburg and Granite, to the sprawling ranchlands surrounding Deer Lodge, tour participants will have the opportunity to view a palimpsest of vernacular forms and styles carved into the rugged Montana landscape. The representative variety of properties on this tour dating from the late 19th through mid 20th century, including housing from every social stratum, mining and ranching structures, theaters, and the mainstays of any hard-living western town-churches and bars, ensures VAFers will find buildings that meet their particular interests.
Dinner for the NW tour will be at the historic Grant-Kohrs Ranch at Deer Lodge. The ice house is seen here. (National Park Service photo) Saturday, 13 June 2009
Paper Sessions - Approximately 36 papers will be delivered at Montana Tech. We intend to post paper topics and presenters online two weeks in advance of the conference.Sunday, 14 June 2009
Post-conference tour to the Helena area, sponsored by Society for Industrial Archaeology. Separate registration required - click here for full information.
Keynote speaker Edwin Dobb: Butte native Edwin Dobb is a fourth generation descendant of Cornish tin miners and Irish copper miners. A former senior editor and acting editor in chief of The Sciences, Dobb writes for numerous national publications, including National Geographic and The New York Times Magazine, but his primary relationship is with Harper's Magazine, where he's been a contributor since 1995. Dobb is the co-author, with Jack Horner, of Dinosaur Lives, which The New York Times selected as a notable book of the year and The Los Angeles Times picked as a best book of the year. His work has been anthologized in The Best American Science and Nature Writing Series. Dobb is the co-writer and co-producer of a feature-length documentary film, called "Butte, America," produced by Rattlesnake Productions, of Bozeman, Montana. He is a frequent visiting lecturer at the U.C. Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. Dobb lives in East Walkerville.