Mining Metropolis: An Island in a Stockgrower’s Paradise

VAF 2009, Butte, Montana, June 10th-13th, 2009

>> See the Butte Conference Web site [archive] <<

Come to Big Sky Country in 2009! The June, 2009 VAF Conference will be held in beautiful Butte, Montana. At an elevation of nearly 6,000 feet, amid a dramatic natural setting rimmed by mountain ranges, this city of 33,000 residents is rich with history. Early in the twentieth century, Butte experienced explosive growth due to exploitation of what was then the largest known deposit of copper ore in the world. Butte's population reached an estimated 100,000 in 1917. It was a boisterous and wealthy cosmopolitan city, often compared with San Francisco or New York in its time. Today, with more than 6,000 contributing properties, the Butte-Anaconda National Historic Landmark District is the largest in the nation.

A comprehensive program of tours and social activities will expose us to a wide array of rural and urban built environments and cultural landscapes that illustrate the broad conference themes of mining, agriculture, and settlement. There will be a Butte Day and two regional loop tours that will include Anaconda (northwest loop) or Virginia City and Nevada City (southeast loop), as well as visits to many small town and rural sites. Saturday is devoted to scholarly paper sessions (see 2009 Call for Papers). Within a 100-mile radius of Butte lies a wide range of historic sites illustrating a variety of experiences of settlement in the Rocky Mountain west. Some of these are spectacular in their natural context and unchanged original construction.

See you in Butte!

For more information, please see the Butte Conference Web site. Questions can be directed to Rolene Schliesman, 2009 Planning Committee chair, at 406-444-7742 or rschliesman@mt.gov.