31 Comments so far

1. David on April 20, 2006 7:08 pm

   Kate, be sure to check out the ButteTalk.com blog/site…they’re bound to have some good info for you!

2. Jen on April 23, 2006 11:45 pm

   Make sure to bring your designated driver AND remain inside during all national holidays. I’ll say it again, Butte is the town (next to Browning, MT) that Montananas *love* to make fun of. I would suggest that if you are politically liberal to move to Missoula, because it’s a college town.

3. old liberal fogey on April 24, 2006 1:55 pm

   If Oregon wasn’t liberal enough for you, then only Missoula, MT will do. Te rest of the state will be too conservative.

   Butte is the home of America’s largest Superfund site, and while there are liberals there, it is a community very hostile to environmentalists.

   We make fun of Butte because the town is ugly and most of the people are stupid due to all the environmental pollutants. The only recreation is drinking, except on St. Pat’s day, when you can drink and watch a big parade.

   People in Butte have a lot of civic pride, though, and someone from Butte will probably break-a my kneecaps for criticizing it.

4. David on April 24, 2006 3:03 pm

   Make fun of AND admire, all at the same time, in my experience so far!

5. Jen on April 24, 2006 7:13 pm

   Oh yeah and Butte helped the allies win WWI. Whoo! Rock on. *sighs* Oh wait, it’s Butte, USA.

6. munch on April 25, 2006 12:18 pm

   I rec’d two bachelor’s and a master’s degree in Butte at MTech. Guess Butte is a college town. I live here and I love it.

   Old liberal fogey’s comments are mis-informed, at best. “Stupid” to use his own vocabulary.

7. Robinator on April 25, 2006 12:21 pm

   Don’t listen to all the negative nitwits who say that Butte is ugly/conservative/nothing but a bunch of drunks. Some people are trying to make this a better place to live and some people are very happy to sit on their wide assets and complain vainly. Our school system is far from ideal, but still way better than the public schools of Seattle or Portland, where you have too many kids per teacher and too much big city gang stuff going on. We have some great recreational activities here in the form of skiing, boating, fishing, camping, hiking, and biking./ We are getting more cultural opportunities all the time. We have a super children’s theater program in the Orphan Girl. Come and see us, and I bet you’ll fall in love with “Ugly Old Butte.”

8. moosesdad on April 25, 2006 12:29 pm

   The people leaving negative replys on this site are basically
   jealous of Butte and it’s community. The superfund site they
   speak of is called mining and it is done all around the world
   and they are doing quite well now. The lowest paid worker from
   last year made around 93 thousand. People make fun but they all
   want to be from here. You can say what you want about it on a
   blog but people from Butte will give you the shirt off their
   back and ask you what else you need. I also have a double bach
   and double masters from here and elsewhere and there is no other
   place I would rather live due to the people and pride in this
   community. The people who put Butte down and are negative would
   not dare to it here and in front of a Butte person because they
   know they would be put in their place. That is why they have to
   bad mouth it on a blog. I sure Jen is a hairy armpitted tree hugger
   that is going to save the planet one dread lock at a time. But if
   you move here just know the people will accept you with open
   arms and if you need help I would be happy to give it to you.
   Good luck on the move.

9. Uptown dweller on April 25, 2006 1:00 pm

   If you look at voting records, Butte is the second most liberal town in the state. Very accepting, and extremely friendly. For outdoor recreation and affordability, it blows Bozeman, Missoula, and Helena out of the water. Plus you won’t find a single pretentious person in Butte. I wish I could say the same for Bozeman and Missoula.

   It’s a great town. The economy is on the upswing, and there are a lot of new people moving in like yourself. If you like old homes and Victorian architecture, you’ll be very impressed with the Uptown area. A lot of people will talk trash about Butte, but most that do have never been here other than passing by on the interstate. It’s a mining town, so it has it’s environmental problems, but quite honestly you’d be hard pressed to find a better place in Montana.

10. Uptown dweller on April 25, 2006 1:18 pm

    Forgot to add… winter is great in Butte. The city recieves a lot of sun all year, plus you get nice cold snow in the winter. I tried living in Missoula for a few years, but the city is depressing and grey all winter. Butte winters are crisp and clear, and you have great views of the snowcovered Highlands to the south, and the Pintlars to the west. There are at least 6 six ski areas within daytrip range, and a couple of xc ski areas locally.

11. Frank P on April 25, 2006 2:18 pm

    Butte is not accepting to out-of-towners, especially the older folks.
    People are reluctant to change their ways and embrace newcomers. I would also move
    to Missoula, if I were you. Or, just be prepared to be an outsider for a couple of years. For a lot
    of Butte folks, they only care for those whose grandparents lived in Butte. I expect this phenomenon
    will stop once the older folks er…move on.

12. Uptown dweller on April 25, 2006 3:16 pm

    Frank,
    Old people are bitter everywhere. I was an out-of-towner who moved to Butte, and found the people to be friendlier and more accepting than anywhere. Have you even been to Butte, or are you just posting what you hear? Or are you just trying to keep people out of Butte?

13. irishbythesea on April 25, 2006 3:23 pm

    Thanks to everyone that posted and emailed. Well I got the good
    and bad and am still confused…lol. Maybe some more info would
    help. I spent years in Pocatello, Idaho. (It too, gets many
    negative comments when only seen from the highway.)Agriculture/Ore-Ida
    factory etc. Yet Pocatello had a university and so a mix of ages, colors,
    beliefs etc (a huge plus and getting more necessary as I age). I
    enjoyed the unversity (professional student for years) so I was
    looking forward to the influence of MTTech., but my roots have me
    very comfortable around blue collar.

    Haven’t experienced much of Oregon’s “liberal” attitude. Have felt like an outsider since I moved here. How exactly is Montana and specifically Butte
    conservative? Thought you had a Democrat Gov?

    Also, I currently live in a self described “retirement” town.
    That is definitely a deal breaker re: Frank P’s comment and the
    extensive elderly population in Butte. Anyone else to support
    or refute?
    Again, Thanks for all the input. Difficult to move
    to a new place based on facts and figures. Haven’t the resources
    to do a lot of recon before the move. Also, would really like to
    be day trip “able” to Pocatello due to relatives for child. Now,
    that’s a conservative town…lol.

14. Pam on April 25, 2006 4:58 pm

    Its a town like everyother town in the world There is good and bad there. It will be what you make of it. Love it or hate it it will become your home. Grow where your planted!!! Good luck

15. David on April 25, 2006 5:08 pm

    Actually, moosedad, Jen is one of the staunchest conservatives you would ever hope to meet — sometimes her sense of humor and/or cutting wit don’t quite “translate” on a blog comment! But trust me – she is as conservative as can be.

16. Librmt on April 25, 2006 5:29 pm

    Tech has a strong sci/tech/research/engineering influence on Butte, and it’s the reason Butte keeps attracting sci/tech companies that do solid research and development, not necessarily high tech or innovation (for that, you’d need to look at Bozeman). That said, Tech could do a lot more outreach and could definitely stand to publicize its researchers’ activities and interests. There’s a perception that it’s somewhat aloof, and a lot of the faculty live on the west side of uptown, adding to that perception. Some live on the Flat, but not enough.

    Butte is also pretty blue collar, and it’s likely to stay that way for a while. While we’ve got art galleries and a symphony, the Motley Crüe tribute bands and the monster trucks are going to be more popular. The blue collar roots manifest themselves in a lot of grit and “can do” attitude, and some unwillingness to adapt to “yuppies nonsense” as such— yoga studios and smoothie bars may be a while in coming and everyone loves chain restaurants (Olive Garden, gag!). Political correctness is not very popular; around here it tends to be viewed as whining and you’ll often hear that “no one did me/my dad/my grandpa any favors”. People are judged on how hard they work and to a lesser extent to whom they’re related. The latter is a problem in Butte, mostly because it’s a small town and as in many small towns, people think that if they know your relatives they therefore “know” you. Be honest and work hard, and that tends to lessen after a while. There’s no denying it though.

    Butte is a different brand of conservative than the rest of Montana. The biggest influence no one talks about is the Catholic Church. That’s the kind of conservative Butte tends to be— socially liberal but fiscally conservative, which makes us one of the more liberal towns in the state. We’ve got a fair number of GLB folks but I’m not sure anyone cares what they do when they’re at home. (Yes, a transgendered person got beaten up at the Party Palace, but I think that’s the exception rather than the rule. And that’s the crowd at the Party Palace, more teeth than brains.)

    There’s a pretty good-sized elderly population in Butte, no doubt about that, but it depends where you hang out. If you have kids, you’ll have an automatic pass into the under-65 crowd. Know that socializing here involves a lot of drinking, but then I’ve found that in Great Falls and Billings as well, so that’s not just Butte. Sports of all kinds and all levels are popular—watching, gambling on, playing (adults softball/volleyball leagues), and generally talking about incessantly, women and men.

    Some honest to goodness drawback to Butte? I’d say the schools and the public library. Sorry, but the teachers’ union has a stranglehold on the Butte schools—it’s not that they don’t want to improve, but they can’t fire the deadwood and idiots. Not that they’re horrific (and no, I don’t have kids) but it seems like they don’t challenge kids as much as they could, and they don’t have elementary music programs, that kind of thing. Small stuff that adds up, let’s call it. And the public library! Don’t get me started—I’m a reader and I’ve never, except in remote parts of the former Soviet Union, seen a library this bad. Learn to love Amazon and HalfBooks.com.

17. Jen on April 25, 2006 5:30 pm

    I’m trying really hard from not chewing your butt up, Moosedad. I also try to be really nice in my comments even to a fault, now I e-mailed this woman and told her if she was looking for a homey town, to look elsewhere. If you had a question, I’d help you. Plus I’m a native Montanan, so I think what I have to say has merit of some kind. I love trees – they’re perfect to build homes, to write essays, to walk on … and oh … it robs this crappy place of some oxygen, which some of us may be taking too much of.

    If you don’t have anything wise to say *Moosedad* don’t say it. Because my very biased Republican ears don’t wanna hear it and my Republican eyes don’t wanna see it. All I know is that it’s not my fault that Montana became the laughing stock of the union last year when Schweitzer thought our state’s “possible” fire season out trumps a national war.

18. jokerr on April 26, 2006 7:58 am

    Jen, I was just wondering if you have ever lived in Butte? I am guessing you have or you wouldn’t be qualified to tell someone to look elsewhere to live. I live in Butte and think it is a great place to raise a family. The housing is affordable, the people are great and there are a ton of things for my family to do. Are there bad things about living here? Sure but there are bad things no matter where you live!

19. Shoestring Annie on April 26, 2006 8:29 am

    “…We make fun of Butte because the town is ugly and most of the people are stupid due to all the environmental pollutants”

    Excuse me? I don’t find that to be true AT ALL!

    I am a transplant! I moved to Butte 9 years ago from Colorado and I love it! Sure it has it problems but every town does.

    There are quite a few old people but to be honest the main problem they cause is their driving. :)

    It has MUCH more to offer then “just drinking” but we do know how to throw a party.

    Lots of people make fun of Butte and talk trash about it but in my experience ti is mostly people who don’t know what they are talking about. And Butte isn’t what it used to be – we are building, rehabing and cleaning up and making our town beautiful. Mostly by hard work and determination. Plus, we have to overcome the ignorance of others who put down our beautiful town. I’d rather live under a bridge in Butte than rent an overpriced, undesirable, yuppy crowded, bunny hugging neighborhood in Missoula or BozeAngeles. Plus the women have less body hair here. :D

    LibrMT spoke true and well. You could do WAY worse then to throw your lot in with Butte Irishbythesea.

20. MontanaJen on April 26, 2006 9:05 am

    I’ve read all of these comments, and as a woman who moved to Butte six years ago, yet also moved to and lived in both Missoula and Helena for five years each – I must toss my two bits in.

    My experience moving to Missoula was negative – the competitive ‘I’m more organic than you are’ mentality – and it took me a full year to feel welcomed. The politics are, in my experience, either extreme left or extreme right – take it or leave it mentality.

    My experience in Helena was much the same – it’s a clique city.

    However, in Butte, people welcomed me with open arms. I felt included in the community from day one, and this is the only city of the three that I would consider allowing a child to ride a bike alone along the streets. Missoula has random gay-bashing incidents – Helena is plagued with a reliance upon state government – Butte is the ‘can-do’ city. There’s a live and let live attitude here that I love.

    Each and every friend I tour around Montana says that Bozeangeles and SanFransoula (Bozeman and Missoula) are strip mall meccas with semi-ok access. Butte is five minutes from Montana. We are individuals, and damn proud of placing a higher priority upon locally run business than retail jobs paying $5 per hour.

    I look forward to welcoming you to our amazing city.

21. Jen on April 26, 2006 4:30 pm

    Hm… And I’m sure a lot of people would disagree with you Jokerr and Shoestring Annie… I mean just the fact that you’re not comfortable in leaving your names is something else. I have been in Butte for Speech and Debate. So yes, I know what I’m talking about. My ENTIRE family knows about Butte.

    Just like I doubt Jokerr is your real name and Shoestring is on your birth certificate. If you don’t agree with what I said … don’t comment. I don’t have to defend myself to no one.

    And guess what, I’m from Montana… and this is America (yeah, remember Butte, USA? Where’s the Montana in that?) and I’ll tell anybody where I think they should live. And why aren’t you attacking people who said that Butte is conservative and get off my ass.

22. Jen on April 26, 2006 4:34 pm

    I guess it’s tough to know that 15% of your population lives under the poverty line and the annual income per capita is only $17,000. It must be real nice to be proud of a city where 19.2% of its population under 18 is in the poor house.

23. oldliberalfogey on May 4, 2006 2:24 pm

    Well, my family has been in Montana for a good century or so and all I can say is that I wouldn’t let a kid ride a bicycle on a Butte street after the time I saw a drunk doing 80 mph in town, running a red and colliding with someone. I don’t think anyone died, but it was more blood on the street than I’d want to see.

    And I sure as hell wouldn’t let me kid drink that water…you can tolerate city water just about anywhere else in the state, but Butte has some seriously bad mojo lurking in the city H2O supply.

    And as the comments here demonstrate, if you are an environmentalist, don’t say so publicly…the reason we don’t leave our names is because we literally WOULD probably get beat up by the Butte-ites. The positive is that they DO have their civic pride.

    But as for all those $93K a year jobs…well, then why is the public housing project–Silver Bow Homes and its ilk–the largest in the state?

    Butte sucks, and that isn’t just because no one wants to play Butte at home for fear of a fistfight after the game…

24. newfogey on May 5, 2006 10:25 am

    Well, oldliberalfogey, you might want to pay the town a visit sometime soon. It’s changed a bit since you were last here in the 1950s. Drugs, crime and drunken driving were a much bigger issue when I lived in Bozeman and Missoula. Butte seems like a sleepy small town compared to the other I-90 counterparts.

    90% of the city water comes from the Big Hole River, and although people like to comment on Butte’s water, they never complain about the Big Hole. Or is that people who talk about the water actually have no clue what they’re talking about? And what’s the source of the “mojo”? Last I checked mojo wasn’t listed by the DEQ as a pollutant.

    As for the environmentalists, I’ve seen more true environmentalists in Butte than anywhere. You know the kind, those who are actually cleaning up the environment or doing something to improve stream water quality, not the NIMBY armchair enviros you see everywhere else. If you care about the environment Butte’s actually a place you can do something about it, rather than just complain about it.

    Sure, Butte has Silver-Bow homes. It’s actually a good situation for poor people, or were you trying to imply that poor people aren’t important? I try not to judge someone based on their income, so I have no problem rubbing elbows with someone who makes less than me. Being poor doesn’t make one any less of a human being, and criticizing the poor doesn’t sound very liberal to me.

    So anyway, oldliberalfogey, it sounds like you don’t live here, or care to ever come to Butte, so why would you comment on a place you obviously haven’t been to in a very long time?

25. David on May 21, 2006 6:33 pm

    For the person who said that all the negative comments must be from someone who is jealous of Butte, *please*. I lived there for twenty years and left as soon as I could. Butte is a stinking cesspool of backwards thinking people and crooked leaders. Babb got in there and he is doing his best to change it but there are too many of the crooks still at the top for him to change it. I would never raise children there, sure its a small town with some nice folks here and there, but the backwards attitudes have got to go. Butte will never be anything because the people who live there won’t let it. There have been opportunities for Butte, but for a multitude of reasons the opps have passed them by and moved on to places like Missoula and Bozeman. An example would be a couple years back when a “big box” store tried to move in – well for some reason, people think property on Harrison Avenue of Butte MT needs to sell for as much as land in Manhattan. Needless to say, the big box store never came. There are countless stories like that (Destination MT, anyone?) You will hear praise from the people that are basically STUCK there due to the fact their homes will never sell and their two-bit casino job or job pumping gas for Town Pump is there. Sure, why not just bring you down with them. Butte SUCKS.

26. not David on May 31, 2006 11:00 am

    David, for someone who isn’t jealous of Butte, you sure have a lot to say about the town. If you don’t like it there, great, but blowing out Butte’s candle won’t make yours shine any brighter. Pay the town a visit sometime and you’ll see a lot more positive things that you give the town credit for. The housing market is doing fine, and there are more than just casino and Town Pump jobs. In fact, plenty of people are moving to Butte because unlike Bozeman or Missoula, it is affordable and not overrun by transplants, yuppies, or hippies. The people of Butte are hard-working, proud, and very friendly. Who are all these backwards thinking people? In my experience, Butte people are very much ready for growth and change, but for some reason, everyone who doesn’t live in Butte continues to put the town down. I’ve lived in both Bozeman and Missoula, and while they are experiencing a LOT of growth, it’s not always for the better. Housing developments around both towns are very poorly planned, and the infastructure of the towns can’t keep up with the growth, so you end up with ugly developments, cheaply built housing, and insane traffic problems. Plus the housing in other towns is not affordable for a native born Montanan. They are being purchased by out-of-staters who are coming to Montana with money in hand. A working couple cannot afford a home in Bozeman or Missoula. So, if you really think Butte sucks, keep it to yourself and stay where you are, because the people in Butte sure like it there and are doing just fine.

27. JPF on July 5, 2006 2:35 pm

    Hey, I’m moving to Butte too. I just graduated from Vassar College with a degree in Philosophy. I’m going to be working for Safe Spaces in Butte (a battered women’s shelter). Looking forward to meeting all of you soon! I arrive on the 12th – you’ll know its me because of car (blue Audi with a white racing stripe on it).

28. Jen on July 5, 2006 4:32 pm

    That’s really nice that you’re working in a battered women’s shelter. I hope you make a positive difference in their lives, JPF.

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31. Ms. Poison Now on October 14, 2009 6:31 pm

    Move to Butte? ARE YOU CRAZY? This place sucks unless you graduated from Butte High, or you are an endless lush, or you don’t like diversity! THIS TOWN SUCKS…And if the water doesn’t poison you, the people will…………….