Repeatedly it has been called a ghost town, in anticipation of its necessary end. But Butte defies such easy dismissals. Indeed, its toxic wastes, however abhorrent, may prove in some way to be the city's salvation. There are those who believe that pollution may just possibly provide an important new economic base that will allow Butte if not to prosper, then to live on with dignity, and perhaps to avoid the clownishness and implicit servility that seems increasingly to color the vacationland of western Montana. If so, a man named Donald Peoples will deserve much of the credit.
Peoples is a third-generation native son, born and raised in Butte.
At first he was merely another high school football star, of which Butte has had plenty. He was a hard worker, and smart enough to go off to college. Afterward, in 1962, he dutifully returned to Butte. Several years later he got a job as a football coach at Butte Central, the Catholic high school where both he and his father had played. When we first met, in the summer of 1999, he still wanted to talk about it, even after thirty years.