Stewart Mine

Located within the Butte National Landmark District, the Stewart (or Steward) is approximately 200 feet north of the intersection of North Main and Woolman Streets on the east side of the street. The headframe, main hoist house and auxiliary hoist house remain on the Stewart mine site. The mine was one of the major mines on the Butte hill and had extensive surface facilities, most of which have been removed.

Erected in 1898, the headframe at the West Stewart, constitutes one of Butte's earliest examples of the larger headframes, the 126 foot headframe permitted the use of five-ton skips and a ten-foot diameter sheave wheel. The construction of this headframe resembles the one erected at the Original mine in 1902; the Gillette-Herzog Mfg. Co. of Minneapolis manufactured both headframes. The headframe was designed so ore could be shunted directly from ore cars via a tramway into loading bins, from which rail cars could be loaded. In later years the Anaconda Company abandoned this rail line and used trucks to haul ore to the Weed Concentrator (Harrier and Farnham 1930; Piper 1987).

With the exception of the Original mine, the Stewart has the only remaining brick hoist house on the Butte hill. This brick hoist house was built between 1891 and 1906. In 1906 Clark replaced the steam hoist with one operated with compressed air. This became common practice on the Butte hill during the first decade of the twentieth century and this retrofit could be accomplished with several minor adjustments which included enlarging the engine cylinders. The tower at the rear of the hoist house contains a steam line (Shovers 1984; Piper 1987; Sanborn 1891; 1900; 1914).

The auxiliary hoist house contained the Bowser steam hoist which was converted to operate on compressed air early in the Twentieth century. The steel tank and smokestack located adjacent to the auxiliary hoist house on the west served as an exhaust for the steam-powered hoisting engine. Clark erected this building sometime between 1891 and 1906 (Piper 1987; Sanborn 1891; 1900; 1914).

The Stewart mine (aka West Stewart or Steward) was one of Butte's deepest and most productive copper-silver mines from the late 1890s until its closure in 1973. Although large-scale development did not begin at the West Stewart until the turn of the century, the original mining claim was actually patented several decades earlier. On August 9, 1877 William A. Clark, John W. Steward, Samuel F. Larabie, and Clark's brother, Joseph, filed on 10 acres known as the Steward lode. The Stewart vein, rich in silver ore, branches both east and west of the original lode encompassing the Gagnon, Original and Parrot mine sites. The Clark Brothers initially developed the Steward lode from the East Stewart shaft beginning in the 1880s, working the vein sporadically with 10 to 30 men and reaching a depth of 330 feet by 1894. The miners worked the 2-compartment shaft using a Ledgerwood steam hoist.

Within the next six years the Stewart grew from a small, insignificant operation into one of Butte's premiere copper-silver mines. By 1895 W. A. Clark and his brothers, J. Ross and Joseph, operated the Original and the Colusa-Parrot, both located along the Stewart vein .

The miners made great advances in the Stewart shaft during the last years of the Nineteenth century, reaching a depth of 600 feet in 1895, 800 feet in 1898, and 1000 feet in 1900 and a powerful E. P. Allis hoisting engine replaced the old engine. By 1900 Clark employed 140 men in the mine.

The first years of the Twentieth century marked noticeable changes both above and below ground at the Stewart. In 1898 the 126-foot shaft steel headframe replaced the wooden one over the 1,300 feet deep, 3-compartment shaft. Connections were driven between the Stewart and the other Clark mines, the Nipper, Parrot and Original. That same year work continued on a shaft several hundred feet to the west, a mine that came to be known as the West Stewart. Clark employed 114 men to work this mine, who in one year's time advanced the shaft 650 feet, creating a shaft 1,100 feet deep that was served by a compressed air Nordberg hoist.

By 1905 the number of miners working underground had risen to 235 and the shaft reached a depth of 1,900 feet. Tunnels were driven connecting the West Stewart with the Clear Grit and the Mountain Con. Trammers at the West Stewart still relied on horses to move ore from the stope to the shaft, while some of the Amalgamated mines had already shifted to electric locomotives. By this time work in the East Stewart had subsided and the shaft was relegated to serve as a ventilation shaft for the more productive West Stewart. Even with improved ventilation the Stewart remained one of the two hottest mines on the Butte hill (the Belmont being the worst), with temperatures as high as 130⁰ F. in certain deep-level stopes.

On June 1, 1910, ownership transferred from W. A. Clark to the ACM Co.. During the last months of Clark's dominion ore hoisting was transferred from the Stewart to the Original mine. Six months later hoisting resumed at the Stewart, and ore mined at the Little Minah and the Clear Grit was hoisted through the Stewart shaft. In 1911 the ACM found a vein of high grade ore on the 2,300-foot level and set their work force of 479 men to the task of drifting in both directions from the shaft along the vein. By 1912 miners at the Stewart reached a depth of 2,500 feet using a hoisting system of three double-decked cages and 7-ton ore skips. The same year fire ravaged workings at the 1,700-foot level but damage was confined to that single level and work continued in stopes above and below. Although copper production fell off at end of World War I, by 1920 the Stewart shaft reached a depth of 3,633 feet, making it ACM's deepest Butte mine.

During the next two decades low metal prices, strikes, and a nationwide economic depression temporarily halted mining at the Stewart. World War II demands for copper reactivated the Stewart and for the next 20 years the Stewart was a major producer. After the war, copper continued to be hoisted through the modern, Kelley shaft located to the northeast. Miners connected the Stewart underground to the Kelley on the 3000-foot level so that ore mined in the Stewart could be raised through the Kelley taking advantage of its larger skips and more powerful hoisting engine. Even after A. C. M. halted block-caving in 1955 and turned to pit mining, miners continued to extract copper ore selectively in the Stewart underground until 1973 when underground operations ceased. Some experimental mining occurred in the Stewart until 1980. The Stewart shaft eventually reached a depth of 4,400 feet, making it one of Butte's longest operating and deepest copper mines (Shovers 1987).