Welcome to the Butte Archives

Since 1981, the Archives has provided access to Butte's rich history and culture through our manuscript and photograph collections, enabling us to foster relationships with patrons worldwide.

Talking about history in Butte is like talking about food in France. There’s so much of it, and it’s all so good, it’s hard to choose.

Clem Work

The town grew on the side of The Hill and it was Butte all at once, out of the copper womb.

Richard K. O’Malley

Butte people measure their wealth in the richness of their culture, their value as workers, their strength in family and friends – a valuable and lasting prosperity.

A Butte Woman

Silver Bow was rugged and harsh, but it had a certain unpremeditated beauty… Always you fought it with your heart … this raw American mining camp.

Myron Brinig

Now don’t forget, Lizzie, when you get to the new world, don’t stop in America. You go straight to Butte, Montana.

Mary Hagan

Butte was mercurial… The wicked, wealthy, hospitable, full-blooded little city welcomed me with wild enthusiasm of the most disorderly kind.

Theodore Roosevelt