Montana

Montana Mining Interests

Montana is Big Sky Country, famed for its fabulous vistas and the richness of its natural resources. Butte, the county seat of Silver Bow county, is known as "the richest hill on earth" because of its vast deposits of copper, zinc, lead, manganese and other minerals. Some ore veins and mine shafts below Butte are a mile or more deep, yielding arsenic, cadmium, and molybdenum, as well as gold, silver and copper.

Deep-vein copper mining was begun as early as 1881. Today, a seemingly inexhaustible copper lode still yields some 8 percent of all copper produced in the U.S. Since 1951, massive phosphate deposits in southwestern Montana have been shipped to Anaconda for processing into fertilizer, and to Butte for refining into elemental phosphorus.

Union Pacific plays a large part in shipping Montana's raw materials to manufacturing sites across the country.

Fast Facts in Montana
Miles of Track	125
Employees	11
Annual Payroll	$1.086 million
Purchases Made	$4.4 million
Community Giving	$18,708
Capital Spending 2007 Capital Spending 2003-2006	$100,000 $700,000