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    Irish Butte
    Irish Butte
    Irish Butte
    Ebook207 pages36 minutes

    Irish Butte

    By Debbie Bowman Shea

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    About this ebook

    Summoned by the call of the copper mines in Butte, Montana, Irish immigrants left a struggling Ireland at the beginning of the 20th century in search of a better life. Around the mines peppering the hills of the mining city, these determined sons and daughters of Eire built strong Irish neighborhoods that engendered the best of Irish culture and influence. Faith, family, a strong work ethic, and a sense of humor would see these immigrants through the decades. Celebrations like St. Patrick s Day and An Ri Ra, Irish language workshops, and a new generation of Irish artisans acknowledge the contributions of this influential group.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcadia Publishing
    Release dateFeb 21, 2011
    ISBN9781439625385
    Irish Butte
    Author

    Debbie Bowman Shea

    This compendium of vintage imagery, based on the treasured photographs and stories held by descendants of those early settlers, depicts the extraordinary lives and determined spirit of the Butte Irish. Tapping these sources, along with the Silver Bow Archives and the World Museum of Mining, former history teacher, genealogy buff, and lifelong Butte resident Debbie Bowman Shea weaves a compelling text, immortalizing some of Butte�s most significant and tenacious pioneers.

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      Book preview

      Irish Butte - Debbie Bowman Shea

      Butte.

      INTRODUCTION

      If on every ocean the ship is a throne / And for each mast cut down another sapling is grown / Then I could believe that I’m bound to find / A better life than I left behind / But as you ascend the ladder / Look out below where you tread / For the colors bled as they overflowed / Red, white and blue / Green, white and gold / So I had to leave from my country of birth / As for each child grown tall / Another lies in the earth / And for every rail we laid in the loam / There’s a thousand miles of the long journey home / But as you ascend the ladder / Look out below where you tread / For the colors bled as they overflowed / Red, white and blue / Green, white and gold

      Long Journey Home

      —Elvis Costello and Paddy Moloney for The Irish In America project

      And so their journey began . . .

      Through the late 1800s well into the 19th century, Irish emigrants hailing from every county of Ireland journeyed to the mining camp of Butte, Montana. Booking passage, those destined to change the course of history set sail from crowded ports that included Cork, Donegal, Mayo, and Wexford. They left a beloved, but impoverished, Ireland in search of a better life. Crossing the Atlantic was not an easy passage, as most Irish immigrating to North America could ill afford first- or second-class accommodations. Assigned to steerage, the cheapest and most crowded space on the lower deck of the ship, third-class passengers found their voyage a long and arduous one. Landing on the eastern shores of North America, relatives and friends who had sponsored their immigration greeted the weary travelers and for many Irish their long journey had come to an end. Those seeking work in Butte, Montana, however, would find the end of their journey another 2,000 miles across the country.

      Ireland had long been associated with mining. Prompted by a call of the first and second wave of the Industrial Revolution, almost every county in Ireland had a metal producing mine, the copper mines of Allihies in West Cork among them. It was during the second wave that Irish son, copper king Marcus Daly from County Cavan, Ireland, discovered the richest vein of copper in the world in Butte, Montana. Intelligent and ambitious, Daly was sent to Butte by the Walker Brothers to assess the Alice Silver mine. Confirming the value of the Alice mine, Daly himself invested money in the enterprise and soon realized a sizeable profit. With a keen mind and a bit of Irish luck, he then purchased the Anaconda silver mine from Irishman Michael Hickey. This would cause a feud between the Northern Pacific (NP), Walker Brothers, and Daly. Because of a hike in freight rate with the NP, Daly would then build the Butte, Anaconda, and Pacific Railroad (BA&P).

      Staking claim to his destiny with help from backers like George Hearst (grandfather of famed publisher William Randolph Hearst), Daly teamed with Rockefeller’s Standard Oil and others to establish the Amalgamated Copper Mining Company, later to become the Anaconda Company. Huge deposits of ore were found in that venture overlooking the Summit Valley, and it was quite timely that Alexander Graham Bell had just invented a telephone using copper wire to transfer sound, and Thomas Edison had just set the world on fire with his discovery of the incandescent light. The demand for this ductile element was massive, and overnight Marcus Daly became a multimillionaire.

      With a fall in world-wide metal prices and ongoing labor conflicts, many Irish mines shut down operations, and areas like Allihies saw large-scale immigration to Butte. Because of the large number of emigrants leaving Ireland for the Mining City, Butte became known as Ireland’s Fifth Province. Arriving in a city that did not sleep, Irish immigrants found work in the mines and a haven in the many boardinghouses that dotted the span of the hill. Entrenched, they soon staked claim to that hill, and Irish neighborhoods like Dublin Gulch, Corktown, Sunnyside, Centerville, Walkerville, and Muckerville sprang up around the gallows frames that dropped men a mile below the earth’s surface.

      Surrounding himself with his countrymen, Marcus Daly ensured work and fair wages for the many Irish immigrating to Butte. But the working conditions of underground mines were dangerous, and the Irish, placing safety in the hands of God, exceeded all ethnic groups in mining fatalities. If a duggan or fallen rock didn’t take them, respiratory diseases that included tuberculosis and consumption lent a hand, making young widows of many Irish brides. The term duggan comes from Duggan mortuary.

      The Irish not only ran the mines of Butte but found opportunity in every field of work—miners and mine superintendents, political positions, business professionals, merchants, bar owners, bootleggers, policemen, firemen, clergy, and domestics. Linked by a common thread, all served to

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