Granite Mountain Mine memorial Butte
— — the morning the city counted its dead.
Not only on a wall.
“On the night of June 8, 1917, a fire in the Granite Mountain shaft above Butte killed 168 miners. It remains the worst hard-rock mining disaster in United States history. The memorial sits on the hill where the headframes stood, granite walls listing every name. Below, the streets of uptown still hold the shape of a copper town. The wind comes off the ridge most afternoons. — from the studio
Granite Mountain Mine memorial Butte, 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.
The Granite Mountain Memorial sits on the hill above uptown Butte, on the site of the Granite Mountain and Speculator mine shafts. On the night of June 8, 1917, a fire broke out in the Granite Mountain shaft and spread through the connected workings. 168 miners died, most from asphyxiation in the underground levels. It remains the worst hard-rock mining disaster in United States history and the deadliest underground metal mine fire ever recorded. The memorial opened in 1996 and is maintained by the Granite Mountain Memorial Foundation.
The memorial is built from cut granite quarried in Montana. Curved walls carry the names of all 168 men who died on June 8 and 9, 1917, grouped by the level of the mine where each was found. Interpretive panels along the path describe the night of the fire, the rescue efforts that brought up survivors through bulkheads they built themselves, and the labour history that followed. The site sits at roughly 6,300 feet, above the Berkeley Pit and the Anselmo headframe district that anchor the rest of uptown.
The memorial is open year-round, free to visit, and reached by a short paved road from uptown Butte that climbs past the Anselmo Mine Yard. Parking is at the top of the hill; a paved walking path circles the wall. The site is exposed; wind off the Continental Divide is steady most afternoons. Butte itself is a National Historic Landmark District with one of the largest collections of intact mining-era architecture in the American West, and most uptown landmarks lie within walking distance of one another below the hill.