Butte Mining Museum

Dad really, REALLY wanted to go see the mining museum, so we went to see it. Wow! That place was pretty sweet. There was a replica of a little town that was somewhat identical to a real mining town (so cute - took tons of random photos in the little town... and in that note, I took a ton and a half of photos of wheels... they were cool).

Anyways, while wandering through this 'mining town' which was built around one of the original towers that raised and lowered the people, donkeys, and mining cars full of ore, dad saw a sign for a tour of the mine... and oh, did he want to see that... so we did. It was GREAT!!! Unfortunately, I did not bring my flash with me, so the photos of that are a lot blurry... it was dark in there.

On with the photos!

Speaks for itself

The dentist's chair... I think I will start liking the dentist now... better now than then.

A sign that was next to the saloon

Hmmm... Where are you going??

Can you guess what this vehicle is??

First snow mobile!!! hahaha... Needless to say, it didn't really work.

The mining tower stands far above the replica town.

The first air compressors!!! They were the portable ones.

The Durant Express building and an original wagon.

A truck for the BA&P railway

There are 3 cages here... one was for the mining cars full of the ore, one was for the miners and the other was designed for the donkeys.

A people mover or cage... can you guess how many they fit into a cage at once?? If you guessed 7, you are right on... a tight fit. Can you see dad's head popping over the top of the door??

Above is the first people mover, prior to the 3rd and last tower below. Here, one foot of the miner goes in the bucket and he holds on, while another guy lowers him into the mine shaft.

An original mining tower to the area... On our tour, we ended up directly underneith this tower. We saw the underside of the people movers and cages.

Getting fitted for our ming advedture! Got on our belts with battery packs, got on our orange hard hats with our head lamps.

All ready to mine!

Going in!

A close up map and a 'Butte' map showing all the paths of the mine... It is huge!!

A sign on the mining walls... there were a few of them, these warning signs, but this was the best photo I could get.

There was no stearing on the mining cars, so they had to the above yellow apparatus to turn the cars around a corner in the mine...

What the miners used for ice, for their water or whatever. Much better then what they had for a potty...

This is the last thing we saw... At this point our guide told us to turn out our head lamps... and all we had was this one candle for light. It was dark in there!! Luckily our guide let us turn our head lights back on for our walk back to the top. :) (all those 'spot' lights you see in all the photos are from our head lamps).

It was a great experience... a bit cold, and damp and DARK... but well worth it. If given the opportunity... take it!!