Festivals

Each year, folks from all over the world and our local residents enjoy festivals that celebrate various themes, cultures and seasons.

Montana Folk Festival

We proudly host one of the Northwest’s largest FREE outdoor music festivals! The Montana Folk Festival features performances and demonstrations by over 200 of the nation’s finest musicians, dancers and craftspeople. It showcases multiple performances by more than 20 Artists/groups on six stages including a dance pavilion dedicated to participatory dancing, a family stage with performances appealing to children of all ages, and a Montana folklife stage. In addition to the performance stages, there are several themed festival areas: the Montana Folklife Area, the Family Area, two Festival Marketplaces and the Festival Food Courts. The festival site is situated in the heart of the nation’s largest National Historic Landmark District. Open air and tented sites will provide a variety of performance venues ranging from intimate stages to amphitheater-sized venues. The Original Stage, which offers a panoramic view of Butte’s historic high rise buildings and the surrounding mountains, is located on the site of the historic Original Mineyard, with its dramatic headframe that is a remnant of Butte’s early days as an underground copper mining center. Visit montanafolkfestival.com for more information.

Arts & Culture

Butte is home to the nation’s second largest National Historic Landmark District, with over 4,500 historic structures within 2.7 acres – from elegant mansions of Copper Kings to humble miner’s cottages, boarding houses, and hotels that once housed an estimated 100,000 people. 

ArtWalks

There are monthly art walks located in Historic Uptown Butte where residents and visitors can explore artists’ studios and galleries, attend theater productions, and enjoy spoken word poetry.

The Imagine Butte Resource Center

Hosting a growing community of thinkers and makers, working together, in Uptown Butte. The center is a gathering place for creatives to begin making and learning with one another, exchange creative inspiration and craft expertise. Today, the Center is home to many diverse creative projects including the Foreground Gallery, Butte Arts Symposium, the Butte Arts Monthly publication and the Eye|Land Institute residency program. The IBRC offers support to community members by maintaining a collaborative meeting grounds and providing access to a growing collection of studio resources through workshops, exhibitions and events. The IBRC is always looking for new volunteers and members to learn and grow with the IBRC’s existing team of passionate thinkers, makers and doers. Visit www.ibrc.me for more information.

Mother Lode Theatre and Orphan Girl Theatre

The Butte Center for the Performing Arts is the non-profit organization that guided the restoration of this grand theater. The building serves as a regional venue for musical and theatre shows and local productions for children and adults with dramatic talents to display on a world-class stage. Visit www.buttearts.org for more information.

The Butte Symphony

In its 66th season, the symphony has experienced continuous growth, bringing the best of classical music to Southwest Montana.   The Butte Symphony  provides a subscription concert series in its performance home at the Mother Lode Theater. Visit www.buttesymphony.org for more information.

Charles W. Clark Chateau Museum

Housed in a 26-room, 4-floor historic mansion built in 1898 by Charles Walker Clark, eldest son of Copper King and U.S. Senator, W.A. Clark.  This wonderful facility doubles as a museum of local history and an arts and artists center. Visit co.silverbow.mt.us for more information.

Butte Silver Bow Arts Foundation

The foundation is a nonprofit organization formed to promote the arts, culture and heritage of the region. Visit www.bsbarts.org formore information.

Museums and History

For more than a century, copper was king in Butte and this city became one of the world’s most important sources for the strategic metal. In the process, the wealth generated by mining and refining earned Butte the title “The Richest Hill on Earth.” For all the right reasons, Butte remains the Richest Hill on Earth.

The World Museum of Mining

Located on the west edge of Butte, just beyond the Montana Tech campus, on 22 acres surrounding the Orphan Girl Mine. It was once a working silver mine owned by Marcus Daly. The museum includes Hell Roarin’ Gulch, an authentic reproduction of an 1890’s mining camp with more than 35 buildings to visit. All are carefully arranged with authentic artifacts from early Butte. The museum also offers an underground mine tour with interpretation of what daily life was like for underground miners. Also, the museum maintains a photo archive that contains an extensive collection of organized historical images of Butte in its heyday. Visit www.miningmuseum.org for more information.

The Dumas Museum

Designed and built as a three-level brothel, in 1890, and remained active as a brothel until 1982, making it America’s longest running house of prostitution. It was one of the first two-story brick structures built in Butte’s famous Red Light District along Mercury Street. Visit www.thedumasbrothel.com for more information.

The Mai Wah Society Museum

The Society is restoring the Wah Chong Tai Company and the Mai Wah Noodle Parlor buildings to hold permanent and temporary public exhibits to interpret the Asian history of Butte, Montana, and the Rocky Mountain West. Visit www.maiwah.org for more information.

Lady of the Rockies

In December 1985, this 80-ton, 90-foot tall statue was installed atop the Continental Divide utilizing Sikorsky helicopters. She now stands at 8,510 feet above sea level – 3,500 feet above Butte. The huge monument to mothers everywhere rivals the Statue of Liberty in her dimensions. Her nose is four feet long. Her eyes are two feet wide. Her lips are three feet wide. A new observatory and chapel were added at the base of the statue in 1997. A Memorial Wall in the chapel contains about 10,000 names submitted by family and friends of women from all 50 states and several foreign countries. Plans are underway to expand the statue’s complex by adding a $3 million dollar tram to carry visitors from the valley below to visit the statue. Visit www.ourladyoftherockies.net for more information.

Mineral Museum

Located on the Montana Tech Campus displays more than 1,300 classic mineral specimens from Butte’s rich mining district as well as from mining areas around the world. Visit www.mbmg.mtech.edu for more information.

The Copper King Mansion

A 34-room Victorian mansion completed in 1888 as the Butte residence of William Andrews Clark, one of Montana’s “Copper Kings” who helped establish the fledgling territory. Through his many mining and banking ventures, Clark became one of the wealthiest men in the world. By 1900, Clark had amassed a personal fortune estimated at $50,000,000. Visit www.copperkingmansion.com for more information.

The Piccadilly Museum of Transportation Memorabilia and Advertising Art

Displays exhibits of transportation memorabilia from around the world, including advertising art, petroliana, underground train (subway) memorabilia, license plates and highway markers from around the world. Also on-site is a vintage replica 1920’s service station, complete with original gas pumps and furnishings. There is also an extensive collection of vintage cars. Visit www.piccmuseum.com for more information.

Anselmo Mine Yard

Located at Caledonia and Excelsior Streets, it is a working underground mine that remains intact and provides a showcase of underground mining technology, tools, buildings and the working environment of underground miners. The Anselmo is surrounded by historic homes that reflect the times before the advent of the trolley system and the automobile, workers lived within walking distance of their source of income.

Granite Mountain Memorial Overlook

Large displays of interpretive plaques and memorial bricks to commemorate the June 8th, 1917 fire that took 168 lives, the nation’s worst hard rock mining disaster. The memorial plaza affords a view of the Continental Divide and the Summit Valley.