Butte historic uptown headframes
— — the iron skyline of a copper town.
Not only on a wall.
“Uptown Butte climbs a hill that used to be the richest on earth. The brick blocks along Park and Granite still hold their nineteenth-century cornices, and above the rooflines the gallows frames stand where the shafts went down — black steel against the Continental Divide, fourteen of them still up. The Anselmo, the Original, the Mountain Con. The hill remembers the shifts. — from the studio
Butte historic uptown headframes, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Butte sits at 5,538 feet on the western flank of the Continental Divide in southwest Montana, the seat of Silver Bow County. From the 1880s into the 1980s it was the largest copper-producing district in the United States, controlled for most of that run by the Anaconda Copper Mining Company. The Butte-Anaconda Historic District covers nearly six square miles and is one of the largest National Historic Landmarks in the country, taking in the entire Uptown commercial core and the surrounding hill of mine yards.
Uptown's masonry was built on copper money during a thirty-year boom. The Hennessy Building, the Metals Bank, the Hirbour Tower, the Hotel Finlen — granite, sandstone, and pressed brick, with terra cotta detail and tall cast-iron storefronts on the ground floors. The hill's brickyards ran day and night to keep up. Many of the buildings have been continuously occupied since they were built and are now anchored by working bars, breweries, and law offices rather than torn down.
The classic loop is on foot. Start at the Butte Archives, climb Park Street, cut north past the Hotel Finlen to the Original Mine Yard, then walk the rim toward the Anselmo. The World Museum of Mining at the Orphan Girl yard is the in-depth stop, with an underground tour and original head house. The Berkeley Pit viewing stand sits on the east edge of town. St. Patrick's Day in Butte is the largest in the state.