Substance With Beautiful Movement

Prior to Butte's formal establishment in 1864, the area consisted of a mining camp that had developed in the early 1860s. The city is located in the Silver Bow Creek Valley (or Summit Valley), a natural bowl sitting high in the Rockies straddling the Continental Divide, positioned on the southwestern side of a large mass of granite known as the Boulder Batholith, which dates to the Cretaceous era. In 1874, William L. Farlin founded the Asteroid Mine (subsequently known as the Travona); Farlin's founding of the Asteroid Mine attracted a significant number of prospectors seeking gold and silver. The mines attracted workers from Cornwall Ireland & Wales, Lebanon, Canada, Finland, Austria, Italy, China, Montenegro, Mexico, and more.