The World Museum of Mining was founded in 1963 when the close of Butte’s mining heyday was less than two decades away. In the end, Butte experienced a century of hard-rock mining and earned the reputation of being home to one of the world’s most productive copper mines of all time. The Museum exists to preserve the history of Butte and the legacy of its mining and cultural heritage.
The World Museum of Mining is one of the few museums in the world located on an actual mine yard, the Orphan Girl Mine. It has fifty exhibit buildings, countless artefacts and sixty-six primary exhibits in the mine yard, including two small steam locomotives.
The Davenport Locomotive Works in Davenport, IA, built 30” gauge 0-4-0T (Tank) locomotive
#122 in 1916 for the Anaconda Copper Mine in Black Eagle, MT. It weighs 30,000 lbs and has 28” drivers and 9” x 14” cylinders. Operating at a boiler pressure of 150 psi, it delivered 5,143 lbs tractive effort.
The Anaconda mine was closed in 1947 after producing 94,900 tons of copper. Its location has been consumed by the Berkeley Pit, a vast open-pit mine that uses a different technology to adapt to changing grades of copper ore.
This 0-6-0T (Tank) locomotive was built in 1928 by H. K. Porter in Pittsburgh, PA, for the Keystone Steel & Wire Co., in Peoria, IL. In 1956, it was sold to the Great Western Sugar Co., where it was numbered #3. It weighs 132,000 lbs and has 46" drivers and 18" x 24" cylinders. Operating at a boiler pressure of 185 psi, it delivered 26,580 lbs tractive effort.
Great Western Suger’s origins date from 1903 when Charles Boettcher founded the Great Western Sugar Company and opened a sugar beet plant in Loveland, CO.
Above, a Butte, Anaconda & Pacific maintenance of way vehicle built for work on the railroad’s overhead electric catenary cables.
Founded in 1892, the Butte, Anaconda and
Pacific Railway is a short line railroad operating in the US state of Montana . It was financed by the interests behind the Anaconda Copper Mining Company and operated primarily carrying copper ore from the mines at Butte to smelters at Anaconda, MT. The company was chartered as a common carrier but also carried passengers and general freight.
