in my possession the following statement from the Anaconda Company’s
last year’s report. There were brought by rail to the smelters at
Anaconda one million four hundred and fifty-nine thousand tons of ore
from the Butte mines. This company shipped one hundred and twenty-four
million four hundred and eighteen thousand pounds of copper, and
paid fourteen thousand dollars express charges, on five million
seventy-four thousand and thirty-six ounces of silver and one hundred
and thirty-five thousand two hundred and forty-four ounces of gold.
One hundred and fifty thousand dollars worth of powder and forty-one
thousand seven hundred and sixty-one dollars and forty-nine cents
worth of candles, were used in their Butte mines. The pay roll of
this company alone amounted to five million three hundred ninety-two
thousand three hundred and twenty-three dollars and twenty-three
cents. As the above amounts are so large, I put them in words instead
of figures, so that the reader will understand that there has been no
mistake made, as often occurs in copying figures.
The Boston and Montana, The Butte Reduction Works, The Butte and
Boston, The Montana Ore Purchasing Company and other companies that are
operating in Butte, I am not familiar with. According to Mr. Braden’s
account for the year 1899, the copper output of the mines of Butte was
two hundred and twenty-three million pounds of refined copper.
The monthly pay roll of this “Greatest Mining Camp,” including
smelters, is over fifteen hundred thousand dollars, or over eighteen
million dollars per year.
The wealth of the copper deposits at Butte was first recognized
officially by the United States commissioner of mining statistics,
Raymond, in his report of 1870. From that date to the present time the
development of the copper deposits has been rapid; and, at this writing
the state contains not only the richest copper mines of the world, but
also the largest and most modern reduction plants. Thus, in brief,
are the footprints of the prospector and the “from the cradle to the
throne” of the mines of Montana.
After this faint effort to give an illustration of the “Then and Now,”
I can but think of the “Now and Then” thirty-six years hence, and that
someone, perhaps, will have this little book in the year 1936 and take
up where I have left off and write the “Now and Then.” “I wish I were
a boy again;” if I were, I would not give my chances to watch the
progress that will be made in the valleys and mountains of the West
during the next thirty-six years for the pay roll of the “Greatest
Mining Camp on Earth” from the time of its first existence until then.
Now I end this series of letters, hoping that the reader will have as
much pleasure in reading them as I had when writing. If so, both of us
will be satisfied. Faithfully yours,
ROBERT VAUGHN.
Great Falls, May 30, 1900.
Transcribers’ Notes
Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a
predominant preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not
changed.
Text contains numerous nested quotations that use different
combinations of single- and double-quotation marks; and paragraphs in
some multi-paragraph quotations do not begin with quotation marks.
Those marks have not been changed except as noted below.
Simple typographical errors were corrected.
Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained.
Some page references in the List of Illustrations do not match
the positions of the corresponding illustrations because those
illustrations had to be repositioned between paragraphs. One
illustration appeared in a completely different place than indicated by
the List of Illustrations, and remains where it actually appeared.
Page 34: The signature and date were repositioned for consistency with
all of the other signatures and dates in this book.
Page 73: “preceive” was printed that way.
Page 88: Extraneous closing quotation mark removed after the
next-to-last occurrence of “I pray the Lord my soul to take!”
Page 122: Unmatched closing quotation mark after “old country” deleted;
perhaps the phrase was meant to be in quotation marks.
Page 127: Extraneous closing quotation mark removed after “said the
lordly red man.”
Page 155: Opening quotation mark added before “Although,”.
Page 161: Opening quotation mark added before “The spree then began.”
Page 307: “regions which up that time” was printed that way; probably
missing a “to”.
Page 437: Extraneous opening quotation mark removed before “Regarding
the Canyon”.
Page 440: Extraneous closing quotation mark removed after “forty miles
an hour.”
Page 440: Extraneous closing quotation mark removed after “was not
known then.”