"Open-pit mining was not just a new way to mine, but a new way to live. After the 1920s, hard-rock mines across the American West transitioned from underground operations to large open-pit holes. Butte, Montana, a well-known underground mining center, experienced this switch when the Anaconda Company began a large open-pit copper mine, the Berkeley Pit, which operated from 1955 to 1982. Although the Berkeley Pit gave the Anaconda Company and consumers easier access to copper, its effects on workers and community members were more mixed, if not detrimental. Mine labor was now safe, but the pit's open spaces also meant less freedom and camaraderie for workers. The pit's expanding boundaries became even more of a problem. As open-pit mining nibbled away at ethnic communities, neighbors faced new industrial hazards, widespread relocation, and disrupted social ties. Residents variously responded to the pit with celebration, protest, negotiation, and resignation. Even after its closure, the pit still looms over Butte. Now a large toxic lake at the center of a federally-led environmental cleanup, the Berkeley Pit continues to affect Butte's search for a post-industrial future. Using oral history interviews and archival finds, The City That Ate Itself therefore explores the lived experience of open-pit copper mining"-- Provided by publisher.
|
