Flags for the Butte Hill Headframes

For several years, each summer the community of Butte, Montana has installed large US flags on the Butte headframes that dot the Butte hill like exclamation points to punctuate the industrial legacy landscape of Butte, Montana. 

Often mistaken for oil derricks by visitors, they were originally called gallows frames (or gallus frames) because they were used to lower miners to their stations below the surface. The double meaning of the name was not lost on the miners who knew the risks in their daily work. Many died below the surface in the dangerous business of "getting the rock in the box."

Today, about a dozen of these headframes have been preserved, immediately visible from anywhere in the valley below and recognized far and wide as symbols of Butte, Montana. You can't pick up a brochure or see a TV ad without noticing a logo that is some configuration of a headframe. They represent better than any other symbol the substance and spirit of the Butte community.

They represent Butte's mining heritage, the submerged sacrifice of sweat, toil and tears to get the precious metals from beneath the surface that helped win wars and fuel a global economy. The copper mines beneath each headframe made widows and orphans but their immense wealth also fed and clothed thousands of families, many of them immigrants from around the world who realized their American dreams here.

They still represent the resilience of a town that stands tall and strong and straight against the onslaught of time and the elements. They punctuate the Butte landscape like exclamation points. Yet, for most of the hours of the day, especially in long winter nights, they have remained invisible to the millions of people who pass by Butte each year on their way east or west, north and south.

For a long time it was not possible to hoist flags on the poles, because, for a variety of reasons between wear and tear, the headframes have been unable to host flags. 

Thanks to the engineering wizardry of Larry Hoffman and his crew of volunteers they have figured out an engineering solution that allows the older flag poles to handle flags again.

Now the last obstacle is to raise the funds to purchase new flags.  With the harsh weather of our climate, the flags last one season and must be replaced each year and we are trying to replenish the fund to purchase these 12 x 18 flags for Butte's headframes.

We are seeking contributions large and small to help us to purchase new flags and for the equipment needed to keep them properly lit at night.

Thanks in advance for your contribution and what it means to the community to see these flags unfurled and flapping in the wind again in the summer and fall months..

More information about Mainstreet Uptown Butte, Inc.: Mainstreet Uptown Butte works to rejuvenate Uptown Butte, Montana by embracing the transformative and restorative power of the arts to lead to economic vitality and cultural vibrancy, encouraging rich and diverse performing and visual arts. Mainstreet Uptown Butte applies the power of the arts to visually enhance Uptown Butte, encouraging commerce to contribute to a vibrant economy, promote assets with a goal of preserving historic resources, and strive to work with organizations with similar goals.

Visit us at http://www.mainstreetbutte.org or on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/uptownbutte.