Butte and East Butte, Montana

The small community in the very foreground of the above photo is East Butte. It's the community that has the highway to Helena running right through it. The large 2 story building on the right side of this highway is Harrison grade school. Now you may ask : Where is the golf course ?   There is none here. Where is the rec. center ?   There is none here. Where is the swimming pool ?   No, that blue you see is not a swimming pool. It's probably toxic water. But for all the lack of modern amenities, for us kids there was never a dull moment. We would spend endless hours carving statues into the sand walls of the Pittsmont mine settling tank area.   Each of us carving the same.   A competition, if you will, to see who could create the most attractive ...... nude lady.   Dan always did the best. Well, now that you have spotted the Harrison school look directly left, across the highway and 3 blocks more.   You should see a large black and slightly curved structure.   That is the remains of the Pittsmont mine.   Farther left near the edge of the photo is a light rectangle.   This is the setteling tank I mentioned.   It is very fine sand, almost silt.   When moistened it compacts very well. I could continue on with more stories but that may border on boring. Many thanks to Mr. Art Willman for sharing the above photo. If you would like to meet Art go to the 1957 web page and scroll down. Now, let's zoom in on a portion of the above East Butte neighborhood.   This photo was most likely taken from atop the Pittsmont mine ore dump which you can see easily in the photo above just to the west of the Pittsmont slag heap.   This is a great old photo (circa 1945) showing the Butte hill before the open pit progress began. Can you remember who lived where ?   Well, if you are like me the answer is 'no'. If you click on the picture above you will see a description of who lived where. Many thanks to Ms. Deanna (Mencarelli) Woods for sharing the above photo and for the neighborhood tour (click on the above picture). Back to: Harrison home page   - or -   Check out Trefor's Home Page Web Page by TD Roberts. Please report any problems directly to: trefor.duane@comcast.net Page created: Mar. 19 2009 and modified: Aug. 21, 2015