Montana oil and mining journal. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1931-1953, 1936-01-25
liners TunneIed Big lutte Four Years; Found No Ore

There's q big tunnel through the body
OF Big Butte, and drifts and practically
everything that goes to make 8 mine
except a paying mineral deposit. Few
Butte people are aware that such work
ings exist, but old news accounts show
they are there and that it took about
four years to drive them. The early
day miner was prepared to try every
thing in his search for ore and he
never stopped trying until his money
Back in the early eighties a couple
Of Butte men set out TO make a
monkey out of a geologist, by develop
ing a mine IN Big Butte. The geologlst;
Professor Clayton, had pronounced
Big Butte to be "an immense por-
phyry dyke" In this conclusion he was
supported by other biologists OF that
day But Professor Clayton had once
committed a blunder. He had con-
demned the Anaconda hill as barren
grOund-and a couple of Butte men,
W. H. Blodgett and George S. Lewis,
decided that II he was wrong once ne
was probably wrong twice, and so they
set out to explore Big Butte.
They drove a tunnel several hundred
feet long into the huge rock. ran drifts
and predicted, even when they bored
hundreds of feet and spent countless
dollars without striking anything but
knife-edge leads Of metal, that they
would zone day make another Ana
conda" out of Big Butte. But accord
ing to the old-time reports, when
BIodgett and Lewis ceased operations
the geologist was still q geologlst and
there had not been any additions, con-
tributed from this county, TO the mon
key groups in the ZOO. But about Big
Butte. A news report in Butte paper, |
Nov. 81, 1888, reads as follows:
Mt 4c
by mining men in the developments be-
ing made by Superintendent BlOdgett
in the Big Butte mining tunnel. 1t Is
known as the Sunny Butte Tunnel
site, and from the firing of the first ,
blast three years ago. has been re-
garded as something of a curiosity in
the Summit valley mining district OPP
erations-because it is being carried on
by the owners, prompted by the instinct
Of genuine miners, to explore the butte
regardless Of the fact that no scientist
or expert has ever reported favorably
on the mineral-bearing character of
the ground.
'1The tunnel is located on the south
side Of Big Butte, which was pro-
nounced by Professor Clayton four
years ago to be an immense porphyry
dyke. But this eminent scientist gave
the same verdict regarding the Ana
conda hill, where the richest cupri-
ferrous silver-bearing lode perhaps in
the world has been discovered in the
lower levels.
wv H. Blodgett, practical miner OF
wide experience, has concluded that
scientific geological surveys are not
always infallible. So he decided TO ex- :
plore the innermOst depths Of Big
Butte II
Associated with George S. Lewis
Mr. Blodgett has run tunnel in a
northeasterly direction a distance Of |
675 feet, crossing large number OF
veins containing promising vein mat
eer, with porphyritic granite foot and
hanging walls and maintaining the
dip and trend Of the lodges which have
been developed east and west of Butte .
AT a point rs feet from the mouth
OF the tunnel an east drift has been
run 100 feet on vein which showed
four feet between the walls and which
carries thin streakS of sulphuret ore
assaying from II to IS ounces in silver
and showing a trace Of copper. The ,
general characteristics of the lead are !
Identical with those of the Anaconda,
Gagnon, Original and Mountain View !
ON the greater center belt east Of Mis- !
soula gulch, and with the Anselmo and !
other properties on the same belt west
Of the gulch
at would not be surprising If the
explorations Of Blodgett and Lewis
should explode theories of Professor c
Clayton that the Big Butte porphyry (
dyke formed an impossible barrier tol q
the lodges of the east and caused them {
to break up into q labyrinth of small b
veins on either side Of the obstruction. d
The indications at present are GER
ta1nly In favor of the development of
another Anaconda hill In Big Butte"