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Butte-Silver Bow County, Montana
Genealogy Website

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Patrolman George H. Pace
Took Risky Chance

Fortune Tellers of Butte

Judge Jeremiah J. Lynch

  A Midnight Horror-Officer Fred A. Parlin 
Shot in Cold Blood
Submitted by Darren Conn 

September 2013

MTGenWeb logo was created by Karen De-Groote

Butte got its beginning in the late 1800s as a mining town in the valley near Silver Bow Creek.  Butte sits high in the Rocky Mountains near the Continental Divide.  Gold and silver were mined at first, but with the invention of electricity, copper soon came in demand.  The Butte hills were rich in copper making Butte known as “the Richest Hill on Earth.”  

The population soared to over a hundred thousand people at one time.   Workers came from many countries including but not limited to Ireland, England, Wales, Scotland, Finland, Austria, Serbia, Italy, China, Croatia, Montenegro, Mexico, and Canada, as well as areas all over the United States.  Butte is so rich in its history that people come here just to see where their ancestors lived so long ago.

Prior to 1881, Butte was part of Deer Lodge County. For that reason, Butte records before that time are housed in the Powell County Courthouse in Deer Lodge.

In 1977, the city of Butte and Silver Bow County combined governments to form Butte-Silver Bow. In 1980, under the guidance of the Butte Historical Society, Butte-Silver Bow established the Butte-Silver Bow Public Archives. All existing records of both bodies have been gathered and are preserved in the Archives. They are now available for research.