Main Hall's granite steps with dark (mafic) inclusions. This texture of dark blobs in granite is typical of many parts of the Boulder Batholith, including the Welch Quarry near Homestake Pass. Also pictured are examples from the Science & Engineering Building as well as the granite arch and rock wall at the corner of Park & Western Streets.

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The Montana State Bureau of Mines and Metallurgy was created in 1919 under the direction of Dr. C.H. Clapp, then president of the Montana State School of Mines. Clapp was director of the Bureau from 1919 to 1921. After his departure, the Bureau floundered a bit until Francis Thomson became president of the Montana State School of Mines, and subsequently the director of the Bureau. Under his leadership, the Bureau published a study that brought increased visibility to the institution, which in turn brought increased funding. Thomson is also credited with changing the name to the State Bureau of Mines and Geology.

Because of Thomson’s efforts, the Bureau was able to hire its first full-time employee, Uuno M. Sahinen. Sahinen worked his way up to become the first Bureau Director and State Geologist who was not president of the School of Mines. So great were his contributions to the Bureau that an annual award is given by the Bureau called the Uuno Sahinen Silver Medallion, which acknowledges outstanding contributions in understanding and development of energy, mineral, or groundwater resources in Montana.

Today, the Bureau is located on Montana Tech’s campus in the Natural Resources Building, and employs 59 people.

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Only nine of Main Hall’s twenty-five rooms were originally heated by furnace. To remedy that situation, the Mill Building was constructed during 1907 and 1908 to house a large heating plant. This second campus building furnished steam heat to Main Hall and, later, to other campus buildings. It was connected to Main Hall via tunnels in the building’s basement. Although no longer in use, its huge boilers remain intact. The Mill Building also accommodated the assay laboratories, which were moved from Main Hall’s unheated south basement. For this reason, the building was originally named the Metallurgical Building. At one time resident faculty occupied the upper floor. Designed in the Renaissance Revival style, the Mill Building was intended to architecturally complement Main Hall, but not overshadow its grandeur. Today, the building is used as a common space for students to study.

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Construction for the Chemistry and Biology Building began in 1920 after Montana citizens supported a $250,000 special bond issue for it. The bond, however, was challenged in court, and progress was halted. Building resumed and stopped again when workers went on strike for five months. Shortly after the strike was settled, the second-floor slab collapsed. Luckily there were no major injuries or deaths. It was found that the formworks had been tampered with, causing the collapse. It was finally completed and ready for use in September of 1923. It was first used as the chemistry and metallurgy building. It is now used by the chemistry and biology departments, including the study of human cadavers.

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The placement of this building on the corner overlooking Leonard Field and Summit Valley in 1939 added balance to the existing Montana Tech buildings and rounded out the campus. Designed by Butte architect Walter A. Arnold and constructed at a cost of $191,314, the three-and-one-half-story Art Deco style building was built to house the library and the Mineral Museum.

The notable main entrance to the building has three sets of doors that were donated by the Anaconda Copper Mining Company. The doors are made of brass and have bas-relief panes depicting the evolution of mining.

The expansive ceilings of the interior were crossed with steel beams encased in dark-stained wood. Many of the interior walls are faced with Gardiner travertine quarried in south central Montana.

Modern facilities have now replaced the library and auditorium, but the mineral museum remains today, sharing quarters with mathematics, computer science, and offices.

The Mineral Museum began in 1901 and is the oldest museum in Butte. It has an impressive collection, including a donation of 2,000 minerals from the Charles Gallagher family and another collection of 1,000 specimens willed to the Museum by William A. Clark III. Today the Mineral Museum has approximately 13,000 specimens. When visiting, notice the stage at the north end of the museum. The space in which the museum is held was once an auditorium.

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The students of the Montana School of Mines constructed the Big M in May of 1910. The student body gathered to place the emblem of their school in “the most conspicuous place” they could--on the face of Big Butte. They made the letter 67 feet high and 75 feet wide. The M was laid out by surveying students of the School of Mines. The next morning, beginning at 10 am and working until 5 pm, the men formed a bucket brigade and hauled 600 pounds of lime to the site. With the aid of a hose borrowed from the local fire department, they painted the rhyolite that made up the Big M. When done for the day, the men shouted with glee because the letter could be seen from any point in Butte and was a focal point for visitors coming into the city by rail.

In 1912, serifs were added to the M to increase the width to 90 feet. This would not be the only change to the Big M over the years. On May 2, 1962, Governor Tim Babcock “threw the switch” illuminating the M permanently at night. The Montana School of Mines Alumni Association and the Copper Guards headed this project, with assistance from the Anaconda Company. The Butte City Council agreed to pay half the electricity bill to light the M at this time. When the lights of the M were lit that first night, the city erupted in cheers and applause. Governor Babcock noted that “such a project required a tremendous school and community effort… This great spirit of cooperation exemplifies your institution.”

Towns across Montana have a letter on a hillside to represent the local high school or university, but Butte’s is the only hillside letter to be illuminated each night. It not only lights up, but flashes “V for Victory” when Montana Tech wins a sporting event. The first V occurred in 1962 when the Orediggers won their Homecoming game. Montana Tech continues to flash the V whenever its sports teams have a victory.

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The Montana State School of Mines attempted to build an activity field in 1920 but was unsuccessful due to lack of funding. In 1931, the Silver Bow County Emergency Relief Association took on the task of creating the field, with the assistance of unemployed miners. It was the beginning of the Great Depression, and the men were paid with bags of beans. The field was referred to as the “Bean Bowl” for years to come.

Leonard Field was officially named in 1933 after Nathan Leonard, the university’s first president. The first football game was held on October 15, 1933, against the Dillon Normal College Bulldogs. At the beginning of games, the football team ran onto the field from an opening in the western wall, from a tunnel connected to the Gymnasium building, now Science & Engineering Hall. In addition to being used for football, the field also served as a baseball field, a running track, tennis courts, and was flooded with water in the winter to make an outdoor skating rink.

In the 1970s the western wall of the field was mortared for safety purposes by the Public Service Employees Program. Today the field is used for various activities, including by the local hurling club.

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Main Hall was the first building constructed for the Montana State School of Mines. Originally known as the “School of Mines building,” its cornerstone was laid on December 29, 1896. Designed in the Renaissance Revival style by John C. Paulsen, one of the Rocky Mountain region’s most prominent architects, it set the standard for the rest of the buildings to come. Upon its completion, it was considered to be the most substantial and solidly built public building in the state.

Featured above the second story windows are five reliefs of men who were pioneers of mining-related sciences: Benjamin Franklin (physics), Robert Hunt (geology), Ferdinand Gaetzschman (mineralogy), John Percy (metallurgy), and Alexander Holley (chemistry). Original interior finishings include an open granite stairway with brass railing and wrought iron balustrades framed by polished granite columns. The building also features tunnels connecting to the neighboring buildings.

The school opened its doors to its first students on September 18, 1900. The heating system proved inadequate that first winter, but by the next September a steam heating plant had been installed. As the campus grew and more buildings were added, the building was renamed Main Hall in 1919.

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The north half of this building was constructed in 1910 as a gymnasium and auditorium, designed by noted Montana architect C.S. Haire. It was the third campus building. As Montana Tech grew during the next decade, expansion became crucial. Engineering students in particular required spacious classrooms for drafting tables.

In 1923, the south wall of the gymnasium was removed and a second building constructed following Haire’s design but doubling the original size. The remodeled first floor included a large drawing room with space for sixty tables, a small auditorium, and a suite of offices. The second floor consisted of more offices, a file room, a blue-print room, and two drafting rooms.

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Marcus Daly, one of Butte’s three copper kings, died November 12, 1900, at age 58. Within weeks, the Marcus Daly Memorial Association was organized with the primary goal of commissioning a monument. The group contracted internationally known sculptor Augustus St. Gaudens, the Irish-born designer of the US $20 gold piece, to craft a larger-than-life-size bronze statue of Daly.

The Association raised $25,000 in the first year, enough to cover St. Gaudens’ fee. Dozens of donations came in at $5, but the largest contributions came from the Daly Bank, then owned by Daly’s widow, at more than $8,000, and the Hennessey Mercantile, which donated more than $6,000. St. Gaudens had the first casting done by 1904, but it was destroyed in a fire in his New Hampshire studio. The second casting, by Gorham and Company in Rhode Island, was shipped to Butte for installation on Main Street in front of the Post Office, today’s Federal Building. The grand unveiling on September 2, 1907, came a month after St. Gaudens died. The Daly statue is his last significant work.

A massive $15,000 granite base was designed by New York architects and stone carvers John Carrere and Thomas Hastings. The granite was quarried at the Welch Quarry east of Homestake Pass and shipped to New York for carving. After St. Gaudens completed the statue of Daly it was shipped to Butte, but was stored in a warehouse for a year awaiting the completion of the base. Its final assembly in the summer of 1907 was done by Anaconda Company engineer Fred Green.

North Main Street has a steep decline, and the huge island in the middle of the road that held the Daly statue was a problem for vehicles, which tended to slide into the base. A local committee promoted the idea of moving the statue to the School of Mines campus, and Daly’s widow, Margaret, agreed. She donated $5,000 to the Butte Pioneer Club to pay for the move.

Despite a remarkable number of people who seem to remember the statue on Main Street as recently as the 1960s, the statue and its base were dismantled and moved to West Park Street on June 25, 1941. Mrs. Daly wanted to see the change accomplished before she died. She passed away just three weeks after the move.

The statue itself was loaded into the bed of a pick-up truck that hauled it up Park Street. The new location at the gateway to Montana Tech is still an island in the street, but the base is far smaller than the original on Main Street.

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Francis A. Thomson was the first school president to enjoy this fine residence, completed during his tenure in 1936. Thomson had declared upon his arrival in 1928 that, because of its barren grounds, the school had the “ugliest campus of any educational institution” in any of the continents. Thomson initiated and saw to completion an improvement program that entailed not only construction of the residence hall and Leonard Field, but also the extensive landscaping of the campus buildings and grounds with appropriations under the Works Progress Administration and other relief agencies. Separated from the campus by an encircling ring of mature conifers, this substantial home, with its inviting balustraded porch, twin chimneys, and tasteful brick, reflects the 1930s transformation.The current chancellor and family continue to live in the Chancellor’s Residence.

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The Montana Tech Arch was funded by Bob and Pauline Poore, philanthropists in the Butte community. The arch was designed by local architect Harold “Pete” Godtland, and was modeled after Bob Poore’s alma mater’s arch, Sather Gate on the UC Berkeley campus. The Montana Tech arch was dedicated in 2003. It is illuminated at night with lights that change color depending on the occasion.

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