Butte Street Railway

Streetcars A view in uptown Butte, looking east on Park Street from the intersection of Park and Main, with the Owsley Block on the left. There are four streetcars visible in the photo. Evident are the motor vehicles which would doom the streetcars. Source: Butte-Silver Bow Public Archives, Smithers Collection

The first electric railways appeared in the 1880s, built specifically for passenger service on urban street railways. Butte’s street railway system began operation in 1886, briefly with horses and then small steam engines pulling cars.

In 1890 electric streetcar service began and then ran for nearly a half century. Based at the carbarn and repair shop just east of Front Street, the system grew to thirty-five miles of track that reached Walkerville in the north, Columbia Gardens in the east, and the Country Club to the south. On a couple of routes, short electric trains carried ore from several mines to concentrating mills. The 1920s and 1930s saw passenger traffic decline. The year 1936 started with major track improvements uptown, seemingly assuring a busy future ahead. However, the owner—Anaconda Copper Mining Company—in an “unexpected” move, sold the system. The purchaser was a nationwide company, National City Lines, which operated urban transit motor buses. As it had done in other cities, the new owner quickly replaced the streetcars with new buses. With the approval of the Montana Public Service Commission, the last streetcars ran on September 22, 1937.