Saving Butte
| I always wanted to check out a ghost town and visiting Butte was like visiting a ghost city. One hundred years ago Butte was bigger than Los Angeles, Seattle, or Denver, second only to San Francisco west of the Mississippi. After World War Two, however, the mines died out and the city lost half its population. The downtown looks as if though there has been no new construction in fifty years. Up the mountain behind the city is a vast suburb where the miners once lived right underneath the cable mining sledges. What were once vibrant neighborhood streets are now rows of peeling wooden houses. |
 |
Em standing in front of sign, "women of Butte"
Views from the old strip mine
Pictures of the town
| I was careful with my picture taking in the half-abandoned derelict neighborhoods; the locals probably wouldn't appreciate some tourist taking patronizing pictures of the decay.
Em and I came up with an idea to turn the city into a vast art colony. The cheap space in the old downtown could be converted to dormitories, studios, and performance space. It was one of those ideas that you come up with to pass the time during a whirlwind long distance drive. It would maybe make an interesting generation X pulp novel, something along the lines of Saving Butte.
|
|
We set out another 100 or so miles east to catch the performance Em was determined to see.
