World Museum of Mining, Butte MT

We decided to head back to OR through Butte, MT up through North ID, through Spokane, WA and on home.  While in Butte, we visited the World Museum of Mining and took an underground tour of the Orphan Girl Mine which produced silver, lead and zinc from 1875 until 1956.

Here is our tour guide showing us how the miners entered the mine through a shaft.  Interestingly, they even dropped donkeys down through the narrow door in a straight jacket in order to get them down.  Once down in the shaft, the poor donkeys never came back up or saw daylight again.  They were used to move the heavy cars, loaded with ore, along the tracks of the mine

Here, Nick is being fitted with a belt with a battery attached that will keep his lantern on the front of his helmet lit while we are underground.  The lights will be our only source of light.

 

Now he is fitted with his lantern.

 

 

Ready to go and face the unknown!

 

Hard to take pictures in the mine but it was very interesting.  Touring the mine made one realize how exhausting and dangerous the life of a miner must have been.

 

 

Another part of the museum had a huge mineral display and a collection of detailed doll houses and dolls.

 

On the grounds was also a reconstructed old mining town, complete with a Chinese laundry, church, school, general store, saloon, blacksmith, dentist and doctor offices, etc.  It all looked so authentic, I felt like I was back in time.