{"id":3388,"featured":0,"modified":"2026-04-17 19:58:08","latitude":46.02669363123386148117788252420723438262939453125,"longitude":-112.52373754978179931640625,"title":"Granite Mountain Mine","subtitle":"1887-1944, 3700 Feet Deep","fullsize":"https://storyofbutte.org/files/fullsize/548b338b9cc64db615b5ce465b9ce45d.jpg","address":"Granite Mountain-Speculator Memorial, Alexander Street","all_locations":[],"zoom":17,"creator":["Story of Butte","Nancy Woodruff","Butte Historical Society"],"description":"When it was installed in 1915, the electric hoist at the Granite Mountain mine was the largest in the country. Connected to the Speculator mine 200 yards to the south, Granite Mountain was developed to bolster the productive capacity of its parent mine. Instead, it nearly destroyed it.<br />\r\n<br />\r\nThe Granite Mountain-Speculator fire of 1917, the worst hard-rock mining accident in the history of the United States, began in the shaft of the Granite Mountain mine. Once ignited, it was only a matter of minutes before the entire lower half of the shaft was engulfed in flames, spreading deadly smoke and gas through miles of underground workings.<br />\r\n<br />\r\nAs one miner reported to the Butte Miner newspaper “It was about midnight when I heard someone shouting ‘Fire!’ My partner and I were working a short distance away from the 2600-foot station. We went out to investigate. The shaft was like a roaring furnace.”<br />\r\n<br />\r\nOf the 410 men lowered into the Granite Mountain mine for the nightshift on June 8, 1917, 168 did not return alive. Some miners battered down concrete bulkheads that separated the tunnels from those of adjacent shafts. Many escaped through the Badger and Diamond mines. A few managed to barricade themselves behind bulkheads in the mine and were found alive after as long as 55 hours.<br />\r\n<br />\r\nThe disaster touched off a period of labor unrest, as most of Butte’s miners went on strike to protest dangerous working conditions. Federal troops were called in to force the miners back to work, and they occupied the city until 1921.<br />\r\n\t<br />\r\nToday the open-air plaza of the Granite Mountain Memorial interprets the events, people, and turbulent times that surrounded the catastrophe. The Granite Mountain headframe, now surrounded by waste from open pit mining, can be seen from the memorial, as well as a panoramic view of Butte’s mining landscape.<br />","sponsor":null,"accessinfo":"Access to the memorial is public.","lede":"Site of the Country&#039;s Worst Hard-Rock Mining Disaster","website":"","related_resources":["<ul>\n<li>Butte Miner, June 10, 1917</li>\n</ul>"],"factoids":[],"files":{"https://storyofbutte.org/files/fullsize/548b338b9cc64db615b5ce465b9ce45d.jpg":{"id":5306,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"Post Card of Granite Mountain Mine","description":"World Museum of Mining | Unknown","thumbnail":"https://storyofbutte.org/files/square_thumbnails/548b338b9cc64db615b5ce465b9ce45d.jpg"},"https://storyofbutte.org/files/fullsize/3bb29d19e565458609c582f7789a1857.jpg":{"id":5305,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"Post Card of Smoke Billowing From Speculator Shaft","description":"Smoke pours from the shaft of the Speculator Mine the morning after the June 8, 1917, Granite Mountain-Speculator fire in this image that was sent as a post card. The fire, which killed 168 men, started in the shaft of the Granite Mountain mine, and quickly spread to the Speculator mine. | Butte-Silver Bow Public Archives | June 9, 1917 | C. Owen Smithers","thumbnail":"https://storyofbutte.org/files/square_thumbnails/3bb29d19e565458609c582f7789a1857.jpg"},"https://storyofbutte.org/files/fullsize/d9c2fc2a6a4898a2e9878966e4666e81.jpg":{"id":5307,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"Good-Bye Note From Miner in Granite Mountain-Speculator Fire","description":"Photograph of a farewell note written by a miner who was unable to escape the Granite Mountain-Speculator fire in 1917. This is a vertical photo. Click the title to view the full image. | Butte-Silver Bow Public Archives | June 8, 1917 | C. Owen Smithers","thumbnail":"https://storyofbutte.org/files/square_thumbnails/d9c2fc2a6a4898a2e9878966e4666e81.jpg"},"https://storyofbutte.org/files/fullsize/e41ef732fae42a79ffa4908140211e0c.jpg":{"id":5298,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"1915 Explosion at Granite Mountain Mine","description":"Men gather at the shaft of the Granite Mountain Mine after an explosion in the mine in 1915. This is two years before the Granite Mountain-Speculator fire of 1917. | Butte-Silver Bow Public Archives | 1915 | C. Owen Smithers","thumbnail":"https://storyofbutte.org/files/square_thumbnails/e41ef732fae42a79ffa4908140211e0c.jpg"},"https://storyofbutte.org/files/fullsize/42b962bd1575243c255ad7f8b34ef59a.jpg":{"id":5316,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"Granite Mountain Mine","description":"Granite Mountain Mine, surrounded by pit mining waste, taken in 2013. | Rossillon Consulting | December 17, 2013 | Mitzi Rossillon","thumbnail":"https://storyofbutte.org/files/square_thumbnails/42b962bd1575243c255ad7f8b34ef59a.jpg"}}}